Culture
A reading of a new play, The Rising Of The Women, comes to Limerick on Thursday, July 4
Actors Carmel Duggan, Mary O’Sullivan and Megan O’Halloran in costume promoting the new Mike Finn play, The Rising Of The Women which comes to Limerick on Thursday, July 4.
A new play by Mike Finn, The Rising of the Women, based on John Ford’s visit to Limerick in the 1950s and how local women who were cast as extras went on strike comes to Limerick on Thursday, July 4
In 1956, legendary film director John Ford came to Limerick to shoot scenes for his film The Rising Of The Moon. This being his first film since the success of The Quiet Man, the new film was eagerly anticipated and the great man’s arrival in the Treaty City was the cause of great excitement.
Amid the glamour and the clamour, two hundred women were recruited from the Labour Exchange to be extras. Their job was to portray worried citizens, anxiously reciting the rosary outside King John’s Castle while inside, a condemned rebel awaited execution at the hands of the Black and Tans.
Midway through the first day’s shooting, the extras discovered that the buns provided for lunch were stale and that their pay was to be six shillings and eight pence rather than the promised ten bob.
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There was nothing for it but to strike! While they were at it, they also demanded porter to wash down the buns! Having fearlessly confronted the great John Ford, the film’s producer Lord Killanin and its technical consultant, Ernie O’Malley, the women demanded their issues were being seriously considered.
Audiences can enjoy how this intriguing story unfolds, with many comic twists and turns, at the first public reading of Mike Finn’s new script, on July 4th in the hall of St. Mary’s National school on Bishop St., Limerick.
The GAFF has brought together a truly seasoned cast of Limerick performers for the reading including Gene Rooney, Jessica Bray, Aidan Crowe, Georgina Miller, Padhraic Hastings, James Corr, Carrie Barrett, Carmel Duggan, Megan O’Halloran, Mary O’Sullivan, Sheila Fitzpatrick and John Lyons with direction by Joan Sheehy.
Tickets for the reading are €10 and are available here
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