10 | April 8, 2017 The Irish Post NEWS Join the conversation online - www.irishpost.co.uk @theirishpost

ulti-faceted Irish community activist Gerry Molumby has taken on many roles in his lifetime. M At the forefront of Irish welfare in Britain, Gerry founded Triskellion Irish Theatre Company, has directed plays, is an actor, reporter, photographer, and an active theatre and concert director / promoter / compere. Originally hailing from Thurles, Co. Tipperary, in 1980 he relocated to Britain. Following the move, Gerry held a position in the National Health. “My career was working with, and for, older people in health and social care. My last position was the setting up of a project in all the GP surgeries of Rushcliffe NHS Commissioning where we now have mechanisms where carer’s health and wellbeing needs are met,” minutes remarked Gerry. “Gerry was pivotal in setting up this service for our carers throughout Rushcliffe, Nottingham city and County,” said Janet Leigh, Senior Service Manager of The with... Carers Federation. Among the many projects that occupy his time, Gerry writes for several Irish and British publications, including The Irish American Post, and works tirelessly to help preserve and expand Irish culture in Britain. In 1996, Gerry founded Triskellion Irish Theatre and Concert Productions in London. Now in a partnership with London-based friend Patrick O’Connell, the company aims to preserve and enliven Irish drama, comedy, and music in Britain and has staged numerous classic Irish plays, including Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World and John B. Keane’s Big Maggie. More recently, he has taken on promoting plays and GERRY MOLUMBY concerts already in production. “Our main focus now is to act as facilitators for What are you up to now? the only animals that do it. political career over most of producing Irish plays by touring Tying up this interview, and You won’t be surprised that his adult life. companies from Ireland and Britain,” says planning our tour of UK with my favourite charity is Gerry, and since the company’s inception, Gerry has led our Irish Cabaret – Celtic Amnesty International. What was the worst all the concert productions. Strands – made up of Irish moment of your life? Showcasing some of the best Irish entertainment actors, musicians and What book infl uenced When my son was very ill from Britain’s Irish community, the concerts are based dancers from within the you most? following his birth on the model of Sunday Night at the London Irish community in Britain. Against the Tide by Doctor Palladium and are called Celtic Strands. Along with Noel Browne. Told with Which local star in any Patrick, Gerry has raised thousands of pounds for Who are your heroes? honesty and emotion but fi eld should the world charities, including: CAFOD, Irish Homeless, Church Besides the great altruistic especially a profi le of a life outside Ireland know Restoration, British Adoption Agency, and St. people, like our current lived in bravery. Noel Browne about? Luke’s Hospice. “Basically we bring together a president, and his – at a time of heightened John McGahern variety of Irish artists and put on a great show,” predecessors ‘the two clerical infl uence and power in says Gerry. The concerts also attract Irish Marys’, who put the Irish Ireland – single-mindedly If you could change one luminaries such as Niall Toibin, Philomena Begley, Diaspora in the centre of campaigned for reform of the thing in your life, what Finbar Furey, and Seán Cannon from The Dubliners. Irish public life, my heroes health system, especially the would it be? They have most recently been touring with The are people like the late Val Mother and Child Scheme of As I get older, I take myself Rare Oul’ Times, a two-act Irish play on the lives of Doonican – an all round 1951, and encountered the less seriously and I wish I MULTI-FACETED: Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh. entertainer, and the actor/ strenuous opposition of both had been braver in my Gerry Molumby comedian Niall Tóibín. the Catholic Church and the youth and believed more in medical establishment. The ability, but I am catching up What’s been the best programme planned to on myself. feel my favourite fi lm story I have spent my adult sea, but the best county in decade of your life so far introduce free ante and is complete. working and voluntary life in this green and pleasant land. and why? post-natal care for mothers Can you recommend an health and social care and The late 1980s and early and to extend free healthcare interesting website? What do you believe in? still maintain, like a lot of On what occasion is it ’90s, I was in my late 30s and to all children under the age of www.irelandanditsdiaspora. I believe your quality of life is Irish people, a social OK to lie? full of my creative energy 16. The Church cited the com as much about good luck as conscience based on ‘love Part of me hates the phrase with no child minding legislation as “anti-family”, any infl uence from a deity. your neighbour as yourself’. “It’s on a need to know restrictions. In those years I expressing concern regarding What is the best lesson Whether you die young, are I accept that I will be basis” – usually delivered by produced and directed a the provision of family life has taught you? born with a chronic disability, remembered after death, someone who is excluding number of plays by JB Keane, planning advice and what they How short it is. live to old age, etc., is just but like an abandoned grave, you from the circle of Brendan Behan and Brien claimed would be increased your good luck and surely, I will eventually be more and knowledge. But sometimes Friel – in such varied venues interference by the state in What is your favourite then, is one of the perennial more forgotten and less in life your instinct tells you, as The Galytmore Dancehall the parents’ rights to provide fi lm and why? questions yet to be spoken of – I can live with that. or asks you, “what actual and Hammersmith’s Riverside healthcare for their children, I still love watching The answered? My father was a good would it do for them to Studio Theatre. wanting to keep this as their Quiet Man, it makes me self-employed builder and What trait do others know this?”. That would be moral domain. Abandoned by laugh and nearly cry, and we lived hand-to-mouth. We criticise you for? my barometer, and done in What record sends a his party colleagues, he having got to know Maureen were so lucky, as my mom My free spirit, ironically. good will I would trust my shiver down your spine? embarked on a stormy O’Hara before her death, I and my seven brothers and Although I am a team player, informed instinct. Again, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin – one sister depended on him I can become impatient with lying is never the best Oíche Nollag. being in good physical and inactivity and the pace of option, but in some mental health. Without an motivation, and will , even situations brutal honesty is What is your favourite established Welfare State in within the team, plough unnecessary, cruel, and place in Ireland? my youth, I shudder to think that furrow! For example, doesn’t really solve anything. I love Galway right out to what would have happened the campaign I am Renvyle Beach where I am to us without him. I believe passionate about currently What do you consider the going to spend my eternity! that we ‘have not here a is votes for the Irish abroad. greatest work of art? lasting city’ and although I want my Irish vote back Cormac’s Chapel in the What makes you angry? brought up a cradle Catholic before I die. Rock of Cashel. Human beings or regimes who, at the age of seven, had Also my punctuality – I need who think they have a right to an overfed conscience, I still to be more on time! What is your ultimate detain people without trial, to try to believe in the afterlife guilty pleasure? apply torture and solitary of some sort. But, like Where do you live and A good red wine – better in confi nement. Whether it be ‘Doubting Thomas’, I want/ what are the best and convivial company. the bully in school, or a need to see a glimmer of worst things about that dictatorship repressing people, that truth. Ironically my place? Who is/was the love of Nottinghamshire, a bit of a for me, it is the lowest form of HELLO MR PRESIDENT: Gerry meets Michael D Higgins mother’s devout Catholic your life? human behaviour and we are faith has imbued my life and journey to London and the My one and only son.