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travelling without passport... travelling without passport "The light of imagination transcends decay." (Brian Patten,The Story Giant)

This exhibition celebrates the diverse and abundant talents of local writers who have had an association with the BBC. It profiles the work of poets, playwrights, novelists and critics and acknowledges their contribution to broadcasting and wider cultural and community life over almost 80 years of programme-making by the BBC in .

Poets and Writers looks back to some of the defining personalities and achievements of the past and forward to the creative possibilities that are being explored by a new generation of local writers. It chronicles a succession of social and technological changes and also the recurring themes and pre-occupations of broadcasting in a diverse society. Whilst no such exhibition can offer a definitive summary of all that has been accomplished, or work that is still in the making, what is presented here usefully illustrates the range and scale of material that the BBC has produced for local and Network audiences.

BBC NI has a long-established and unique role as a supporter of the arts. It has worked hard to encourage creative excellence and remains committed to risk-taking and innovation, and to facilitating "those adventures of the spirit" that lie at the heart of all good broadcasting and literary activity.

Preserving the BBC’s past, whilst building on its legacy by seeking out different voices and audiences, will present inevitable challenges over the coming period. In all of this however, a key task of programme- makers and writers will remain the telling of stories that allow our imaginations to "travel without passport across borders and time" and which connect us ever more fully with the complexities and excitements of the world that we share. This exhibition should make many such journeys possible. I hope that you enjoy it!

Professor Fabian Monds BBC National Governor for Northern Ireland

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radio memories

The radioprogramme is The Arts in Ulstermemories, the year 1966. John Boyd with his hands full of paper rushes from behind the glass partition and into the studio to scold the panel for not talking enthusiastically enough about the book under discussion. Charles Brett is in the chair. Mercy Hunter, John Cowser and I make up the team. "It’s the best thing to come out of this place for years," John insists. "Sound more enthusiastic, for God’s sake!" And he is right of course. On a second take we sing more loudly the praises of ’s first collection, Death of a Naturalist.

In the Sixties when my generation of writers was just setting out, John Boyd and Sam Hanna Bell read our first publications, got to know us and invited us to write scripts or contribute in other ways to their programmes. Sam’s broadcasts often began in The Elbow Room over pints and chasers. But once we had waltzed across the road into Broadcasting House, the hilarity ceased. Behind the glass partition Sam changed (or changed back ) into a Presbyterian disciplinarian, a perfectionist. These great men were a good deal older than us. Their encouragement and patronage were blessings. Thanks to them the BBC played a crucial role in what is sometimes thought of as a northern literary renaissance.

Is it possible to trace some kind of apostolic succession? Sam Hanna Bell and John Boyd’s predecessors include the playwright Denis Johnston, whose combination of words and music and sound effects in pre- war plays such as Lillibulero pointed the way forward; and Tyrone Guthrie, the first voice to be heard on the Northern Irish airwaves, the founding father of radio drama in , before the world became his stage. Two other Ulstermen, Louis MacNeice and W. R. Rodgers, as well as being wonderful poets were innovative broadcasters, pivotal players in the Features Department of the Third Programme (now BBC Radio 3). MacNeice who died in 1963 gave his last interview to John Boyd here in .

As scintillating heir of Rodgers and MacNeice, Paul Muldoon is the most recent bard to work in the BBC. His ingenuity and magic brightened local radio for more than a decade. As is the case with most good chefs, his recipes were often quite simple. The magazine programme Bazaar encouraged writers to do their own thing or try something entirely new. "I hear you’re trying to give up the fags. Would you like to write about it? Five minutes, say?" Who could refuse? Part of the fun was wondering who else would be in the studio: sternly reciting some autobiographical sonnets, James Simmons crooning a political ballad or a love song. Bernard MacLaverty trying out a short story, Sam McAughtry sagely giving us a slice of life, John Morrow making laugh with some outrageous yarn. Stewart Parker, Medbh McGuckian, Ciaran Carson, Frank Ormsby, Jennifer Johnston, Michael Foley – Paul brought us all together on the air and, without trying too hard, made Belfast feel like the centre of the universe. He also ensured that poems were read on the radio and books by local authors reviewed.

In the Schools’ Department Douglas Carson rejoiced in the example and achievements of Bell and Boyd, Rodgers and MacNeice. Over two decades I wrote for him one or two scripts a year based on Irish legends. The thrill was in trying to communicate the spirit of these Iron Age tales through the 20th century electronic contrivance. I loved leaving in my scripts spaces in which the boffins of the Radiophonic Workshop in Manchester would conjure up a giant’s stomach-rumbles or an underwater monster’s slashing 2 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:18 PM Page 5

tail. In The Bird of the Golden Land it was, for a change, the Billy White Jazz Trio who improvised sound effects and tunes and cast the spell. Illustrated pamphlets for the pupils and teachers’ notes accompanied our programmes. Douglas and I were indeed men with a mission. But the curriculum and the fashion changed. By the end of our long adventure we were enjoying ourselves so much we didn’t really care if anyone was listening!

For me producers and writers are what it is all about. It is inspiring nowadays to tune into new work by playwrights still in their springtime – Daragh Carville, Gary Mitchell,Tim Loane, Damian Gorman. More seasoned dramatists such as Marie Jones and continue to adorn the schedules. The comedy drama series Two Doors Down by Annie McCartney looks like a healthy development. Two outstanding young novelists, Robert McLiam Wilson and , live in our midst, both of them skilled broadcasters. In our small community poets seem to have handed over the baton to writers of prose, but for the time being only, I’m sure. The watchword of the BBC’s first Director General Lord Reith was: "The best for the most." May the old curmudgeon never sound out of date. Easy-going disc-jockeying and chat may have their attractions, but the ancient Greeks were surely right when they insisted: "The beautiful things are difficult."

Many years ago I toured the province as floor manager for an amateur talent show produced by that marvellous writer and devoted radio man, Maurice Leitch. I fraternised for the first time in my life with stand-up comedians, country and western singers and Ian Paisley impersonators – an experience I relished. I apologise, therefore, for not discussing the merely diversionary or, for that matter, the documentary. These genres are taking over and can look after themselves. On the occasion of this exhibition of literary photographs I prefer to celebrate creativity and invention. One of the BBC’s greatest servants Huw Wheldon put it this way: "It is through stories, overwhelmingly, that we learn to live in the world: and it is through stories that we learn to live with ourselves. It is no accident that civilisations are built on myths and that religions are built on parables."

There’s a magical line in Ciaran Carson’s poem Hamlet: "the storyteller picks his way through the isolated stars." Radio waves travel at the speed of light. My own time worn retelling of those legends from prehistoric Ireland may just now be reaching a star in Orion’s belt. Who knows what receptive intelligence is tuning in? "Time," Ciaran Carson says at the end of his poem,

Is conversation; it is the hedge that flits incessantly into the present, As words blossom from the speakers’ mouths…

Michael Longley 3 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:18 PM Page 6 poets writers jonathan bardon jc beckett jonathan bardon jc beckett (born 1940) Historian (1912-1996) Historian

Born in and educated From East Belfast, Beckett was © BBC at High School,TCD, QUB and educated at RBAI and QUB. the University of Ulster. A © Pacemaker His many books include the former teacher and lecturer at classic text, The Making of BIFHE and QUB, he was Modern Ireland (1966). During Chairman of the Community the 1950s he and another RBAI Relations Council of Northern historian, Professor Theo Ireland, 1996-2002. A prolific Moody of TCD, collaborated on author whose works include A History of Ulster (1992) two acclaimed series of history programmes for the and Beyond the Studio: A History of BBC Northern BBC NI Home Service. Beckett was also a regular Ireland (2000). A frequent panellist on BBC history panellist on Your Questions and a member of the programmes. Regional Council of the BBC. Several of his broadcast lectures were later published by the BBC. colin bateman sam hanna bell

(born 1962)colin bateman (1909-1990)sam Novelist hanna and bell Novelist Broadcaster A native of Bangor, Born in Scotland but raised in

he studied at © Pacemaker Raffrey, , he studied

Oxford, and became at Belfast College of Art. From © Blackstaff Press a journalist and later 1945-1969, he was a features deputy editor of the producer for the Northern County Down Ireland Home Service Spectator from 1979 (subsequently Radio BBC Ulster). until 1995. His many He organised the Outside satirical crime novels Broadcasting Unit which vividly captured the folk life of include Divorcing Jack Northern Ireland. His programmes included an and Cycle of Violence atmospheric documentary recorded on Rathlin Island (both 1995). (1949). His novels include December Bride (1951), A Man Divorcing Jack was Flourishing (1973) and Across the Narrow Sea (1987). A screened on the BBC in 2000, and his other BBC memorable film adaptation of December Bride starring films include the series Murphy’s Law (2001) and Donal McCann was released in Irish cinemas in the same Wild About Harry (2003). The zany character of his month that he died. In 2001, BBC Radio 4 broadcast writing is exemplified in Mohammed Maguire (2001) Carlo Gébler’s adaptation of December Bride. Bell’s in which the lead character is the son of an IRA commitment to outdoor broadcasting laid the foundations commander and a militant Egyptian fundamentalist. for the BBC’s rich archival holdings. In old age he recalled how ‘people were so eager to tell us a story, to sing us a song.’ 4 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:18 PM Page 7

john boyd daragh carville john boyd darragh carville (1912-2002) (born 1969)

© BBC Producer and Playwright Playwright From East Belfast, he was From Armagh, he was educated at RBAI, QUB and educated at the TCD. A teacher during the University of Kent and 1930s, in 1947 he became a then lived in before Talks Producer on the Northern returning to Northern Ireland Home Service, producing Ireland in 1994. A writer

Your Questions, the highly popular in Residence at QUB Image courtesy of Daragh Carville local version of Any Questions? He was the first from 1999 until 2002, he producer of regular arts programmes on BBC Radio in currently teaches script Northern Ireland. His documentaries profiled classic and creative writing at Irish writers from MacNeice to Heaney. He and Sam QUB’s Seamus Heaney Centre for Irish Poetry. Hanna Bell commissioned Joe Tomelty to write The Tinderbox has produced two of his four stage plays, McCooeys. His best known play, The Flats (1971), was including his first, Language Roulette (1996), an written shortly before he retired from the BBC in exploration of post ceasefire violence. He won the 1972. In retirement, he advised the Lyric Theatre, Stewart Parker New Playwright Award in 1997. edited its journal Threshold and wrote other plays Regenerations, a play set in a Belfast hotel, was first including The Farm (1973) and The Streets (1977). His broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in December 2001. His memoirs Out of My Class (1985) and The Middle of My adaptation of Dracula will be broadcast on BBC Journey (1990) offer a vivid portrait of his various Radio 4 in December 2003. He is currently battles against censorship and in defence of preparing a new play for Tinderbox, Vote! Vote! Vote! socialism in twentieth century Belfast. The Alternative Assembly Elections.

(born 1948) Poet From Belfast, Carson’s first language was Irish. He was educated at St Mary’s CBS and QUB. Until 1998, he was Literature and Traditional Arts Officer

© Pacemaker with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He has recently been appointed to a professorial chair in the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at QUB. His many collections of verse include The Irish for No (1987), Belfast Confetti (1989) and War Music (2003). His acclaimed translations of Dante’s Inferno appeared in 2002. A keen musician, his prose works include Last Night’s Fun (1996), an evocation of Irish traditional music. A regular contributor to arts programmes on BBC Radio 4, he recalled his childhood in a 1984 broadcast for the BBC Radio Ulster series Today and Yesterday in Northern Ireland. In October 2003, he was awarded the Forward Prize for his collection. ciaranciarancarson carson 5 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:18 PM Page 8 poets writers gerald dawe gerald dawe (born 1952) Poet and Essayist Born in East Belfast and educated at Orangefield Boys’ School, the University of Ulster and NUI Galway (where he lectured for many years). He is Director of the for Irish Writing at TCD where he lectures in English. Recent © Amelia Stein collections include The Morning Train (1999), Stray Dogs and Dark Houses (2000) and Lake Geneva (2003). He edited a Blackstaff anthology The Younger Irish Poets (1982 & 1991). Founder of the literary magazine Krino. He is a frequent contributor to arts and social affairs programmes on the BBC and wrote and presented a recent BBC documentary on the legacy of Yeats, A Last Inheritor.

padraic fiacc james ellis padraic fiacc (born 1932) (born 1924) Actor and Broadcaster Poet From East Belfast, he was Pseudonym of Patrick

educated at Methodist College © Pacemaker Joseph O’Connor. Born in © John Minihan and QUB. His name is the Lower Falls, his family synonymous with the long moved to New York when running Z Cars in which he he was five. He attended played Sergeant Lynch. Other a seminary in Manhattan memorable television for two years before performances included the role deciding to return to of Norman Martin in the Billy plays by Graham Belfast in 1946. In 1957 Reid. His production of Sam Thompson’s he won the AE Award and controversial Over the Bridge for the Empire Theatre in 1981, the Poetry Ireland Award. He wrote poetry in 1960 was a classic. His publications include a for nearly thirty years before his first collection, By the volume of poetry, Domestic Flight (1998), and short Black Stream (1969) was published. In 1974, he stories, Home and Away (2002). In July 2003, BBC edited a controversial anthology of poems about the Radio 4 featured some of his short stories Troubles, The Wearing of the Black. Recent collections (including his Irish settings of French folktales) in a include Red Earth (1996) and Semper Vacure (1999). broadcast from a farmhouse at the Ulster Folk and His time on the Upper West Side was recalled in a Transport Museum. BBC documentary produced by Paul Muldoon, Hell’s Kitchen was a Ghetto (1980).

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brian friel (born 1929) Playwright Born in Omagh but raised in Derry, he was educated at St Columb’s and at Maynooth © BBC and St Joseph’s College, Belfast. A school teacher for ten years, he became a full-time writer in 1960. He has lived in Donegal since 1967. Four of his early plays were broadcast by the BBC NI Home Service: A Sort of Freedom and To This Hard House (both 1958), The Doubtful Paradise (1960) and The Blind Mice (1963). As none of these have been published, the radio transcripts are particularly valuable. Later plays include Philadelphia Here I Come (1965 and broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster and the Third Programme that year), Translations (1981, awarded the Ewart-Biggs Prize) and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). Many of these were first performed at the Abbey Theatre, as were his translations of Russian classics. His first televised play for the BBC was The Enemy Within (1965). The BBC Radio Ulster series, Explorations, interviewed him about his plays in 1968. carlo gébler carlo(born 1954) gebler Novelist and Broadcaster Dublin born son of Edna O’Brien. He studied at York University and the National Film and Television School and worked as a scriptwriter and producer before turning to full-time writing. Now living in Fermanagh, he has published travelogues, novels and children’s fiction. His first © David Barker© David novel, The Eleventh Summer, was published in 1985. A travelogue, The Glass Curtain (1989) explored society in Fermanagh after the Enniskillen bomb. His BBC television programmes have included the series, Plain Tales From Northern Ireland (BBC TWO, 1993) and a Channel 4 documentary on the use of the baseball bat during . Put to the Test, his BBC ONE profile of Ballysillan pupils as they sat the 11 plus (broadcast in 1998) won the Royal Television Society Best Regional Documentary Award in 1999. His radio work includes an adaptation of Sam Hanna Bell’s December Bride, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001. His most recent novel is August 44 (2003). damiandamian gormangorman (born 1961) Playwright and Broadcaster Born in Newcastle, County Down. A prolific writer who has scripted and directed many programmes for the BBC, including the verse documentary Devices of Detachment and several dramas for children. He has also adapted works by Padraic Colum and Michael McLaverty for BBC radio productions. In November 2002, BBC Radio 3 transmitted his drama, Last Days of Love, which was commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of the Belfast Arts Festival. Founder of An Crann, an archival project which collected first-hand accounts of the Troubles. He has published several volumes of poetry. © Diarmaid Gorman

7 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:19 PM Page 10 poets writers sir tyrone guthrie richard hayward sir tyrone guthrie richard hayward (1900-1971) Broadcaster (1892-1964) © BBC and Theatre Producer Broadcaster and Travel © BBC The first voice heard on the Writer inaugural broadcast of the Born and educated in Larne, he BBC’s Belfast station, 2BE, on worked in Liverpool before 15 September 1924. Guthrie becoming an actor with the was born in England but spent Ulster Literary Theatre in much of his childhood at Belfast. Hayward acted in early Annaghmakerrig, the family 2BE productions by the home in Monaghan. After his death, it became a Station’s Players. As a teenager, John Hewitt listened centre for creative artists. He was educated at to an early 2BE broadcast of Hayward’s poems in Oxford before joining the BBC for two years as a 1924. Hayward also presented the Double Sided producer. His productions for 2BE included dramas Records series which featured vignettes in dialect. by Yeats and others. His own play, The Flowers Are His performances of Ulster folk songs were Not For You To Pick (1930), transformed approaches highlights of radio broadcasting in the 1920s. to radio drama. His career was spent largely in the Among his own compositions was the ballad The English theatre but included several seasons in Humour is on Me Now. His publications included a Canada. A memoir, A Life in the Theatre, was novel, non-fiction works such as The Story of the Irish published in 1960. In Speak Your Mind, broadcast in Harp (1954) and many topographical volumes, 1969, he was candid about Northern Ireland’s several of which featured illustrations by Raymond problems. BBC NI broadcast a wide-ranging Piper and JH Craig. interview to mark his seventieth birthday in 1970. john hewitt john hewitt(1907-1987) Poet and Art Critic Born in Belfast and educated at Methodist College and QUB. He was Keeper

© Pacemaker of Art at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery from 1930 until 1957. A director of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, 1957-1972, he was later the first Writer in Residence at QUB, 1976-79. His Collected Poems appeared in 1968 and a further compilation, The Selected John Hewitt, was published by Blackstaff in 1981. He also published art monographs including Art in Ulster (1977). Ancestral Voices:The Selected Prose of John Hewitt was published in the year he died. He often took part in arts broadcasts on BBC Radio Ulster. In 1975, his childhood memories of Belfast featured in the BBC Radio Ulster series Today and Yesterday in Northern Ireland. In 1982 the BBC broadcast an interview with him. He is commemorated by an annual summer school, based until recently in his cherished Glens of Antrim.

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seamus heaney seamus heaney (born 1939) Poet From Bellaghy in County Derry, Heaney later lived in Belfast before moving to Wicklow in 1972 and subsequently to Dublin. He was one of the founder members of the Belfast Group, a circle of young poets

© Norman McBeath organised by in the 1960s. His first volume, Death of A Naturalist, appeared in 1966 and was enthusiastically reviewed on BBC Radio Ulster’s The Arts in Ulster. In 1982, he was appointed Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University, and from 1989 to 1994 was Oxford University Professor of Poetry. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 and has twice received the Whitbread Prize (for The Spirit Level in 1996 and for Beowulf: A New Translation in 1999). His selected prose, Finders Keepers, was published in 2002. His work has featured in many BBC programmes, among them Happy Birthday Seamus (1999) which marked his sixtieth birthday. His many collaborations with David Hammond included the 1970s schools’ series Explorations in which he introduced pupils to the riches of twentieth century Irish literature. Classic BBC broadcasts include a 1972 profile marking the publication of Wintering Out and a 1987 reading at Queen’s from The Haw Lantern.

jennifer johnston jennifer johnston (born 1930) Novelist Born and educated in Dublin but has lived in Derry since 1979. Her parents were the playwright and broadcaster Denis Johnston and the Abbey actress Sheelagh Richards. Her early novels evoked the lost world of the Big House during the Irish revolutionary era of 1912-23. Her best known works include The Captains and the Kings (1972), How Many Miles to Babylon? (1974 and dramatised by for BBC TWO in 1982), Shadows

on our Skin (a Booker Prize nomination in 1977 and likewise dramatised by Mahon for BBC © Headline Book Publishing television in 1980) and The Railway Station Man (1984). The Old Jest won the Whitbread Prize in 1979 and a film adaptation The Dawning was screened in 1988. Her early work on BBC Radio Ulster included an abridged version of The Gates (1974), adapted in 1975 by Sam Hanna Bell and read by Kate Binchy.

9 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:19 PM Page 12 poets writers marie jones marie jones patrick kavanagh (born 1951) Playwright (1905-1967) Poet Raised in East Belfast, she has Born near Inniskeen, County worked with the Group Monaghan. He lived in Dublin Theatre and the Charabanc, © Pacemaker from 1939, the year in which A Replay and Dubblejoint theatre Green Fool was published. He companies. Stones in his Pockets wrote for several literary (1999), which was hugely magazines and also lectured at successful, was translated into UCD in the late 1950s. Two of Centre © Patrick Kavanagh 25 languages and won the Irish his best known works were the Times/ESB and Laurence Olivier epic poem of rural life, The Awards. Her tribute to Ruby Murray (2001) was Great Hunger (1942) and a drama, Tarry Flynn (1948). also popular and toured Northern Ireland. It was He recalled his Monaghan childhood in a 1974 broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002. In 2003, she edition of BBC Radio Ulster’s Today and Yesterday in contributed to Territory, as part of the BBC Radio Northern Ireland. In 1977, Edna Longley presented a Ulster series The Land. BBC Radio Ulster documentary to mark the tenth anniversary of his death. In 1979, BBC TWO screened a documentary made by BBC NI’s Religious Affairs staff, Where Genesis Begins, which explored the religious influences on his work.

“To found A castle on the air requires a mint Of golden intonations and a mound Of typescript in the trays.What was in print Must take on breath and what was thought be said.” Louis MacNeice

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benedict kiely maurice leitch benedict kiely maurice leitch (born 1919) Novelist and (born 1933) Novelist and

Short Story Writer Broadcaster © BBC From Dromore, County Tyrone, From Muckamore, County he was raised in Omagh and Quain © Paul Antrim, he studied at Stranmillis educated there and in Laois and College, and taught in Belfast Dublin. He worked in Dublin for six years. He joined BBC from 1945 until 1964 when he NI as a radio features producer moved to the USA. He later in 1962 and moved to the BBC lectured in UCD and wrote for in London in 1970. He left the the Irish Independent and the New Yorker. His work BBC in 1989. His novels includes fiction, short stories and memoirs. Proxpera include The Liberty Lad (1965) and Poor Lazurus (1977) and Nothing Happens in Carmincross (1985) (1969), both of which were banned in the Republic presented grim depictions of the Troubles in rural of Ireland. His television plays for the BBC include Ulster. Drink to the Bird (1992) pays an autobiographical Rifleman (1980), Guests of the Nation (1983) and tribute to inter-war Omagh. His Collected Stories Chinese Whispers (1989). appeared in 2001. He has been interviewed on many BBC Radio Ulster programmes, including Lifetimes (1978), and Public Versus Private (1980), the most recent, by Kate O’Shea, for Artsextra. In the 1950s, Sam Hanna Bell commissioned Kiely to make a radio profile of William Carleton, based on his classic biography, Poor Scholar (1947). cs lewis cs lewis (1898-1963) Novelist and Academic Born in East Belfast and educated in England. After service in World War I, he studied at Oxford and lectured in medieval literature there and at Cambridge until his death in 1963. His rediscovery of his Christian faith occurred in 1931. From 1941 to 1944, he recorded a series of religious broadcasts for the BBC (a bestseller when published in 1952 as Mere Christianity). His last BBC feature was

© CS Lewis Centenary Group a talk about The Pilgrim’s Progress, broadcast in 1962. His children’s novels remain enduringly popular. A CS Lewis tourist trail in East Belfast features his statue and a mural based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950). BBC NI televised Moore Sinnerton’s documentary marking the centenary of his birth, The Man, the Myth and his Wardrobe in 1998.

11 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:19 PM Page 14 poets writers joan lingard joan lingard (born 1932) Novelist

Native of Belfast, educated at Bloomfield Collegiate and in Scotland. A full-time © Penguin writer since 1963, she has written 50 novels, including 37 for children.The Kevin and Sadie series (The Twelfth of July, Across the Barricades, and Into Exile) became a classic evocation of teenage love and angst across the sectarian divide in 1970s Belfast. She received awards from the Scottish Arts Council for After Colette (1993) and Tom and the Tree House (1998). In Today and Yesterday in Northern Ireland, broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster in 1987, she recalled her childhood in Ballyhackamore. She featured in a BBC Radio 4 profile in 1991.

(born 1964) Screenwriter and Actor edna longley Born in County Antrim and edna longley © Pacemaker educated in Cork and Belfast. (born 1940) Literary Critic An actor, after leaving QUB, he and Cultural Commentator was a founder member of A Dubliner who moved to

Tinderbox Theatre Company in Belfast in 1963. She was a Astley © Kate 1988, and was its artistic Professor of English at QUB director until 1996. Scripted Out until 2002. Prolific author of the Deep Pan (1996) - a BBC TV whose works include studies of comedy about Belfast food (and other) mafia. Louis MacNeice and Edward Directed Dance Lexie Dance in 1996 (a BBC Thomas. Editor of the Bloodaxe Northern Lights film nominated for an Oscar in Book of 20th Century British and 1997). Other television work has included the Irish Poets (2000). Longstanding contributor to popular series, Teachers, on Channel 4. During 2002, Fortnight, and the TLS. Doyenne of the the Tinderbox production of his satirical farce, Queen’s English Society where many of the poets Caught Red Handed, toured Ireland. BBC Radio 3 featured in this exhibition first read their work. Has transmitted his first radio drama, The Tunnel, in 2003. written and presented documentaries for BBC Radio Another drama, I Can See Clearly, is scheduled for Ulster and BBC Radio 3 including one on Patrick BBC Radio 4 early in 2004. Kavanagh (1977). Reviews books regularly for BBC arts programmes and has been a panellist on BBC tim loanetim loane Radio 3’s Nightwaves.

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michael longley martin lynch michael longley (born 1939) Poet (born 1950)martin lynch Belfast-born and educated. A Playwright classics graduate of TCD. Arts From Sailortown in Council administrator from 1971 Belfast, he left school © Pacemaker © Leon McAuley to 1991. Active with Heaney and at fifteen. During the other emerging poets in the 1980s, he was Belfast Group formed by Philip resident writer at the Hobsbaum in the early 1960s. Lyric Theatre and at His poems illuminate the nightmares the University of of the Western Front and the Troubles Ulster. Many of his and the beauty of the Mayo landscape. Recent prize- plays were first winning volumes include Gorse Fires (1991) and The written for Weather in Japan (2000) which won the Hawthornden community drama Prize and the TS Eliot Prize. He received the Queen’s groups. His best Gold Medal for Poetry in 2001 and the Wilfred Owen known work includes Award for Poetry in 2003. His most recent work is a Dockers and The History of the Troubles Accordin’ to my chapbook of war poetry, Cenotaph of Snow. A long-time Da. BBC Radio Ulster has broadcast his features on contributor to BBC literary programmes produced by the history of Sailortown. His plays for BBC Radio 3 Bell, Boyd and Muldoon, he also collaborated with and BBC Radio 4 include Needles and Pins, The Douglas Carson on educational programmes in the Clearance of Audleystown and Pictures of Tomorrow 1970s. Corner of the Eye, a profile of his life and work, (previously staged at the Lyric). was screened by BBC NI in 1988. sam mcaughtry sam mcaughtry (born 1923) Broadcaster and Memoirist From Tiger’s Bay in North Belfast, he was educated at St Barnabas’ School. He left school at fourteen and served in the RAF during World War II. He worked

© Blackstaff Press in the Department of Agriculture before becoming a full-time writer. His publications include short stories, travelogues and several memoirs including McAughtry’s Belfast (1981), McAughtry’s War (1985) and On the Outside Looking In (2003). Down In The Free State (1987) was a wry tour of the Republic. In 1996 he became a member of Séanad Eireann. A familiar voice on Talkback and other BBC Radio Ulster programmes, he has presented many series including McAughtry’s Country and Good Company. His features for BBC television include Walking the Stones.

13 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:20 PM Page 16 poets writers leon mcauley annie mccartney leon mcauley annie mccartney (born 1952) (born 1948)

Broadcaster and Poet © BBC Broadcaster and From Tyrone, McAuley was Novelist brought up in the Glens of Belfast-born writer, and Antrim. He has published four frequent contributor to © Darragh Casey volumes of poetry including Arts programmes on BBC Veronica (1994) and children’s Radio Ulster. Her first stories. His book programme, novel, Desire Lines, was You’re booked, was a mainstay of published in 2001. The BBC Radio Ulster and he was third series of her comedy also a long-time presenter on Your Place and Mine. drama, Two Doors Down, A prolific photographer, some of his portraits feature was broadcast on BBC in this exhibition. Radio 4 in 2003. She has recently completed a second novel, Your Cheating Heart.

(born 1934) Novelist Dublin-born but raised in Cavan. Taught in a Dublin medbh mcguckian © Nigel Parry school until the banning of his (born 1950) Poet second novel The Dark (1965) From North Belfast, she was led to his dismissal. The educated at Fortwilliam and controversy was an important QUB. She has held writers’ chapter in the history of literary residencies in QUB,TCD and Sherwood © Paul censorship in the Republic. He several American universities. then moved to London and the USA Her collections include The before settling in Mohill in County Leitrim. His later Flower Master (1982), Captain work includes the semi-autobiographical The Lavender (1995) and The Face Leavetaking (1974), Amongst Women (1990 and of the Earth (2002). She has shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and his collected translated Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill’s poetry into English. short stories (1992). The Rockingham Shoot, a drama Currently on the staff of the Seamus Heaney Centre of rural Ireland in the 1950s, was broadcast on BBC for Poetry, QUB. Recent work has explored the TWO in 1987. A televised adaptation of Amongst legacies of Gregory Peck and Robert Emmet. Her Women, (co-produced by BBC and RTÉ) was BBC NI programmes have included The Wreck of the screened in 1998. His recent novel, That They May Hesperus – an autobiographical evocation of Belfast Face the Rising Sun (2002) was reviewed on BBC (1986). Her contributions to Arts programmes on TWO’s Newsnight Review programme. BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 included discussing the impact of the ceasefires in Simon Armitage’s john mcgahern Stanza (1995) and Paul Muldoon’s Coming to john mcgahern Terms (2000). 14 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:20 PM Page 17

frank mcguinness bernard maclaverty (born 1953) Playwright (born 1942) From Buncrana in County Novelist and Donegal, McGuinness has lived Short Story

in Dublin for many years. He © Colm Henry Writer lectured in English at Maynooth From North © Jude MacLaverty University and is currently Belfast, MacLaverty Writer in Residence at UCD. now lives in Observe the Sons of Ulster Scotland. His Marching Towards the Somme novels Lamb and (1985) and Someone Who’ll Cal were Watch Over Me (1992) were widely acclaimed and memorably won many awards. Plays broadcast on BBC TWO adapted for film in include Scout (1987) and The Hen House (1989) 1983 and 1984. A which starred Tony Doyle and Sinead Cusack and Booker Prize which won an International Television Award. His nominee in 1997 work has been profiled on many BBC arts for Grace Notes, his programmes including Kaleidoscope. He has also most recent novel is The Anatomy School (2001). His adapted plays by Ibsen, Chekhov and Lorca and has publications also include short stories and children’s published several volumes of poetry. A BBC novels. Work broadcast on the BBC includes My production of Observe the Sons of Ulster was Dear Palestrina, a BBC NI production for Playhouse transmitted in November 1990. The cast included on BBC TWO in 1980. Ian McElhinney and Adrian Dunbar.

michaelmichaelmclaverty mclaverty (1904-1992) Short Story Writer and Novelist Born in County Monaghan but moved to Belfast as a young child. Educated at St Malachy’s College and QUB. He was a mathematics teacher from 1928 onwards, and later became headmaster of St Thomas’s on the Falls Road. During the early 1960s, he encouraged a staff member, Seamus Heaney, to © McLaverty Estate write. His own early work included Call My Brother Back and Lost Fields. Many of his short stories and novels were republished in the 1980s. A Stewart Parker adaptation of his story, Aunt Suzanna, was broadcast on BBC NI in 1984. An appreciation of McLaverty by Heaney was broadcast on BBC in 1970.

15 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:20 PM Page 18 poets writers janet mcneill janet mcneill (born 1907) Novelist and Children’s Writer Born in Dublin and educated at St Andrew’s University. After university, she moved to Belfast to care for her father, an ailing Presbyterian minister. She was a secretary on the

Belfast Telegraph, 1929-33. When her children were reared she began to write radio © Leslie Stuart dramas. Her first BBC radio play was The Dear Ruin (1947). A Child in the House, initially a popular radio drama, was later published as a novel (1955). She also wrote The Carlisles,a serial commissioned after The McCooeys ended in the mid-1950s, but which failed to win a following. She was a member of the BBC’s Regional Council. Best known as a children’s writer, she has written over forty novels. They include the popular adventure, The Battle of St George Without (1966). Of the ten books written for adults, most explore the frustrations of middle class Protestants in Belfast. The best known are Tea at Four O’Clock and The Maiden Dinosaur (1964) which includes a comic account of its poet heroine being interviewed on BBC NI.

louis macneice louis macneice (1907-1963) Poet and Broadcaster

© BBC Born in North Belfast, his early years were spent in Carrickfergus. He was educated at Oxford and was a classics lecturer at Birmingham and London Universities until World War II. His first poems were published in 1929. Autumn Journal appeared in 1939. From 1941 until 1961, he was a BBC scriptwriter and producer in the famous Radio Features Department. His career there is documented in Barbara Coulton’s Louis MacNeice in the BBC (1980). His dramatic fantasy, The Dark Tower, was broadcast in 1947 and featured music by Benjamin Britten. His literary links with Ulster, and his friendship with Sam Hanna Bell and John Boyd, opened up new relationships between the BBC in London and Belfast. In 1946 he collaborated with WR Rodgers to present City Set on a Hill, a BBC NI Home Service programme marking the 1500th anniversary of the establishment of the first church in Armagh. During the 1950s, he produced many travel features for the BBC.

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wf marshall derekderek mahonmahon wf marshall (born 1941) Poet (1888-1959) From Belfast but raised in Clergyman and © BBC Glengormley, Mahon was Broadcaster educated at RBAI and TCD. He From Drumragh, the © John Minihan taught in Ireland, Canada and the ‘Bard of Tyrone’ was USA for some years and also educated in worked in London as features Dungannon, Galway editor of Vogue and as literary and Belfast. He editor of the New Statesman. became a His Collected Poems was Presbyterian minister published in 1999. His many translations from French in 1913. Most of his include versions of Molière’s The School for Husbands ministry was in and The School for Wives (both1986). He has edited a Tyrone. He became a number of anthologies including (with Peter Fallon) The lecturer at Magee Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (1990). His College in 1932. From 1935 onwards, his scripts adaptations of Jennifer Johnston’s novels, Shadows on enlivened early broadcasting in Northern Ireland and Our Skin and How Many Miles to Babylon?, were included a dialect version of A Midsummer’s Night screened on BBC TWO in 1980 and 1982. The Cry Dream and a dramatised novel of seventeenth- (co-authored by Mahon and Christopher Menaul and century Tyrone, Planted by a River. His dialect series, based on a short story by John Montague) was Ulster Speaks, (1955) was published by the BBC and screened on BBC ONE in 1984. became a bestseller.

gary mitchell gary mitchell (born 1965) Playwright Gary Mitchell was born in Rathcoole, North Belfast, where he still lives. He left school at 15 and began writing at 26. His plays have focused on the tensions of urban loyalism after the ceasefires. Tearing The Loom (1998), an exploration of radical weavers' experiences during the 1798 rebellion, departed from this setting but likewise wrestled with divided Protestant allegiances. He has won a number of prizes for his plays including the Pearson Best New Play Award (Trust), the George Devine Award and the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright (The Force of Change). His screen adaptation of As The Beast Sleeps was transmitted on BBC TWO in 2002, and won the Belfast Arts Award for Television. Suffering, a short film which Gary also directed, won Best

Image courtesy of BBC NI Drama Department Short at the Belfast Film Festival. He has further screenplays in development. Two new plays will be performed this Autumn: Loyal Women at the Royal Court in London, and Deceptive Imperfections at the Belfast Festival in Autumn 2003. 17 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:20 PM Page 20 poets writers john montague john montague (born 1929) Poet Born in New York, but spent his childhood with aunts on a Tyrone farm. A lecturer at © BBC UCC from 1972 until 1988. His prolific output includes the epic The Rough Field (1972) and a memoir of his childhood, Company (2001). He edited The Faber Book of Irish Verse in 1974. In 1998, he was the first poet appointed to the Ireland Chair of Poetry which rotates between QUB,TCD and UCC. BBC Radio Ulster has broadcast adaptations of his work including Paul Muldoon’s 1979 production of his short story Death of a Chieftain, and Derek Mahon’s 1984 version of another story The Cry. His childhood in rural Tyrone was recalled in The Omagh Road, as part of the BBC Radio Ulster series Today and Yesterday in Northern Ireland.

(born 1930) brian moore Novelist and Broadcaster brian moore A native of Belfast, he left school (1921-1999) Novelist at fourteen to work in the The son of a North Belfast shipyards. He later sold doctor, he was educated at St furniture and insurance and was

Malachy’s College. After service © Pacemaker an administrator with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland

in World War II and post-war Image courtesy of John Morrow with the United Nations in until his retirement in 1994. His Poland, he emigrated to Canada books include Northern Myths (1979), in 1948, where he worked as a The Annals of Ballyturdeen (1996) and Pruck. A Life in journalist and writer. He moved Bits and Pieces (1999), a collection of to the USA in 1959. Among his autobiographical pieces. As a singer and best known novels are The Lonely Passion of Judith instrumentalist, he was a frequent performer on Hearne (1955 and filmed in 1989) and The Emperor Listen Awhile to Me, a BBC Radio Ulster folk of Ice-cream (1965), both of which faithfully evoked programme produced by Maurice Leitch during the his native city. In 1985, he was interviewed about 1960s. Brian Barfield and Paul Muldoon Black Robe on BBC Radio Ulster, while in 1996 commissioned his stories and essays for Bazaar Roisin McAuley interviewed him on BBC NI’s 29 during the 1970s. Published in 1977, The Confessions Bedford Street. His 1956 novel set on the Antrim of Proinsias O’Toole, was adapted for radio that year Road in Belfast, The Doctor’s Wife, was read by Zara in a BBC production by Paul Muldoon. He has Turner on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime in mid- presented various BBC Radio Ulster programmes on 2003. the writer’s craft, including Plain Writing and Getting It Write. johnjohnmorrow morrow 18 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:20 PM Page 21

paulpaul muldoonmuldoon

(born 1951) Poet and Broadcaster Born in Portadown and raised near Moy. On graduating from QUB he worked as a producer with BBC Radio

Ulster from 1973 to 1985 and with BBC television 1985- © Norman McBeath 1986. Two BBC NI series he presented in the 1970s, Faces of Ireland and Irish Poetry, made classic literary texts and the work of emerging writers accessible to a wider audience. Many of the writers featured in this exhibition first became familiar radio voices on his arts programme, Bazaar. In 1989, BBC TWO screened Monkeys, his play about John De Lorean. He moved to the USA in 1987, and has since held a chair in creative writing and poetry at Princeton University. He is currently the Oxford University Professor of Poetry. He won the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry in 1994. A volume of collected verse, Poems 1968-98, was published in 2001. His recent poetry revisits his childhood.

nuala nínuala dhomhnaill ní dhomhnaill (born 1952) Poet Born to Irish doctors in Lancashire, she was brought up in the Kerry Gaeltacht and educated there, in Limerick and at UCC. She lived in Holland and Turkey before returning to Ireland. She currently holds the Ireland Chair of Poetry (which rotates between QUB,TCD and

© Paul Sherwood © Paul UCC). While she writes exclusively in Irish, her vivid readings and empathetic translations of her work by Heaney, Longley and Muldoon have made her work highly accessible. Her first collection was An Dealg Droighin (1981) and recent works include Cead Aighnis. Pharaoh’s Daughter (1990) and The Water Horse (1999) are two of the translated editions. A frequent contributor to BBC Radio Ulster’s Blás, she has also scripted Fionn and the Fiery Monster,an episode of BBC Radio Ulster’s Today and Yesterday in Northern Ireland which described how Finn MacCool became the leader of the Fianna. She contributed to the BBC Radio 3 feature, Yeats’ Legacy, in 1997. 19 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:20 PM Page 22 poets writers edna o’brienedna o’brien (born 1932) Novelist From County Clare, she was educated there and in Galway and Dublin. She qualified as a pharmacist before moving to London in 1959. Her early novels, The Country Girls (1960) The Lonely Girl and Girls in Their Married Bliss (both 1963) were classic evocations of Catholic girlhood, and were initially banned in the Republic of Ireland. Recent work has included plays and a biography of James Joyce. In 1976, her short story, Love Child, produced by Paul Muldoon, was transmitted on BBC Radio 4. During 2001, BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime featured Girl With Green Eyes and Image courtesy of BBC NI Drama Department Mrs Reinhardt.

frank o’connor frank o’connor (1903-1966) Short Story Writer

A pseudonym of Michael O’Donovan. Born and educated in Cork City, he served on the anti- © BBC Treaty side during the Civil War. He was a librarian, journalist and university lecturer before turning to full-time writing. His classic memoir, An Only Child, was published in 1961. His first BBC broadcasts were made during World War II. Across St George’s Channel (December 1940) was a pen-picture of the London Blitz and he had to get the (neutral) Irish government’s permission before recording it in a Dublin studio. Later Home Service talks during the 1940s focused on Yeats,Joyce, AE and Cú Chulainn. The Northern Ireland Home Service transmitted adaptations of his short stories in the early 1960s. On the day after his death in March 1966, BBC Radio Ulster broadcast a tribute by John Boyd, a close friend. Maurice Leitch’s adaptation of Guests of the Nation (1931) was broadcast on BBC in 1983. O’Connor’s birthplace in Cork was opened as a writer’s centre in September 2003. When the BBC sought to recapture its Edwardian atmosphere in a film about his childhood in the late 1950s, his former neighbours refused a request to temporarily remove their new television aerials! 20 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:21 PM Page 23

sean o’faolain sean o’faolain (1900-1991) Novelist and Short Story Writer Born in Cork and educated there, at UCD and Harvard University. The son of an RIC man, he joined the IRA and later served on the anti-Treaty side during

the Civil War. His experiences during these upheavals informed his first © Julia O’Faolain collection of stories, Midsummer Madness (1932). He lectured in England and the United States, 1929-33, and was founder and editor of the literary journal, The Bell, 1940-46, and Chairman of the Arts Council of Ireland, 1956-59. He published many short stories (the collected edition was published in three volumes, 1980-83), novels, memoirs (including the classic Vive Moi!) and biographies of prominent historical figures, ranging from the Great O’Neill to Countess Markievicz. BBC Radio Ulster programmes included With Great Pleasure (1970) in which he narrated his favourite prose and verse, Talking of Childhood (1978) in which he and Denis Johnston recalled early influences, and The Planet of the Years (1979), an adaptation by Paul Muldoon.

(born 1918)

© BBC Theatre Producer frank ormsby Born in Cork and frank ormsby educated in Meath. She (born 1947) worked with the New

© BBC Poet and Editor Theatre Group in Dublin Born in Enniskillen, he before moving to Belfast has taught English at in 1947. She was a co- RBAI since 1971. founder of the Lyric Editor of The Honest Theatre in 1951, which Ulsterman (1969- was based in her South 1989), and of various Belfast home until 1968 when anthologies including it moved to Ridgeway Street. From 1952 until 1955, Poets from the North she was a Labour councillor for the Smithfield Ward. of Ireland (1979 and She directed over two hundred productions for the 1990) and The Hip Lyric before retiring to County Wicklow in 1977. Flask: Short Poems From Her memoirs, Never Shake Hands With The Devil, Ireland (2001). He has were published in 1990. Her many BBC published several collections contributions include a 1966 reminiscence for Ulster of poetry including The Ghost Train (1995). Frequent Today on the Lyric’s early productions. contributor to BBC NI radio programmes including Causeway, Poetry Now and Passing The Time. marymaryo’malley o’malley 21 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:21 PM Page 24 poets writers stewart parker cathalcathal o’searcaigh o’searcaigh stewart parker (born 1956) Poet (1941-1988)

From Gort a Choirce in the Playwright © BBC Donegal Gaeltacht, From East Belfast, he O’Searcaigh was educated was educated at at the NIHE, Limerick and Ashfield Boys’ School at NUI Maynooth. He has © Cló Iar-Chonnachta and QUB. He was a published eight volumes of teacher for six years poetry. His work has been before becoming a translated into many full-time writer. languages and his awards Three of his plays include the Sean O’Riordain addressed the Prize and Duais Bord na Gaeilge. Na Buachaillí Bána legacies of history: (1996) was notable for its eroticism. His Selected Northern Star (1984), Poems 1975-2000 were published in 2002. His Heavenly Bodies work has been broadcast on the BBC and he has (1986) and Pentecost (1987). Catchpenny Twist also contributed to Irish language programmes (1971) was the first full length television play including Iris Aduaidh. He still lives on his mountain produced by BBC NI. Other televised work farm in Donegal but travels widely. Recent work has included I’m A Dreamer, Montreal (1979) and The been inspired by his time in Nepal. A BBC NI Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner (1980). He is profile, File an Phobail (the poet of the people), was commemorated by an annual awards scheme to screened in 1994. honour new Irish playwrights. glenn patterson glenn patterson (born 1961) Novelist From Belfast, he was educated at Methodist College and the University of East Anglia. He is a former Writer in Residence at , Craigavon and several © Jill Jennings British and Irish universities. Currently based in the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at QUB. His five novels have charted youth culture in Belfast against the backdrop of the Troubles and Ceasefires. His first, Burning Your Own (1988), which depicted Belfast in August 1969 as seen by an eleven year old, won the Rooney Prize. His most recent work is No 5 (2002). His Study Ireland: Poetry series was broadcast on BBC TWO in 1999. A programme on Louis MacNeice is scheduled for transmission on BBC NI in 2004.

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tom paulin tom paulin (born 1949) Poet and Critic Born in Leeds but spent his childhood off the Ormeau Road in Belfast. Educated at Annadale Grammar School, University of Hull and University of Oxford. A TS Eliot Prize nominee in 1994 for Walking A Line, his works also include Fivemiletown (1987),

The Hillsborough Script (1987, a satirical drama) and The Invasion Handbook (2002). © Barney Cokeliss Currently lectures at Oxford University. A frequent BBC panellist on Newsnight Review and its predecessor Late Review, his work has also featured on New Poems from Ulster and Poetry Now. His first play, All the way to the Empire Room, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1983.

(born 1942) Playwright graham reid From North graham reid Belfast, she was

© Darragh Casey educated at the (born 1945) Girls’ Model and Playwright at QUB. Writer From the Donegall in Residence at Road in South Belfast, the Lyric Theatre © Wilfred Green he left school at fifteen. 1983-84 and at After some years in the the Young Vic in army and working in a London, 1988- hospital, he studied at 89. BBC QUB and taught productions have history for a time until included The Last of becoming a full-time A Dying Race (for radio writer in 1980. Several of in 1986 and on television in 1987) and My Name, his plays draw on his ‘Village’ Shall I Tell You My Name? (broadcast 1987). She has childhood in exploring the impact of the Troubles on also adapted novels by Victor Hugo and Mervyn Wall familial relationships. These include the acclaimed for stage productions. A collection of her plays, Tea trilogy of Billy plays by BBC NI (1982-1984) which in a China Cup, was published in 1997. launched ’s career. Other BBC plays have included a series of six short plays, Ties of Blood (1985) and You, Me and Marley (1992). The Precious Blood, screened on BBC NI in 1996, starred James Ellis and Amanda Burton. christinachristinareid reid 23 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/21/03 3:05 PM Page 26 poets writers wr rodgers anitaanita robinson robinson wr rodgers (born 1945) (1909-1969)

Journalist and Clergyman and © BBC Broadcaster Broadcaster

© Irish News From the North- Belfast-born Presbyterian West, she is a minister and ‘Romantic Calvinist’. columnist with the He was ordained in 1935, and Irish News.A was minister at Loughgall in frequent County Armagh until he joined contributor to the BBC in London in 1946. BBC Radio Ulster He later lived in Suffolk, Essex and BBC Radio and California. His works included Europa and the Foyle programmes, Bull (1952), a recording of which was also published. including Sunday His Collected Poems were published posthumously Sequence and What’s (1971). He scripted City Set On A Hill, a programme West? She has produced by Louis MacNeice to mark the 1500th presented From Darkness to anniversary of the first Christian church in Armagh Dawn and Mind Your Manners. She has interviewed (1946) for the Northern Ireland Home Service. In writers such as Jennifer Johnston (1984) for BBC The Return Room, first broadcast at Christmas in Radio Foyle. During the late 1990s, she contributed 1955, he revisited his East Belfast childhood in a to the BBC Radio 4 series, Letters from Ireland. programme that included contributions from Denys Hawthorne and Harold Goldblatt. It was regarded as the Belfast station’s best post-war feature. His radio conversations with and about Irish writers (published by the BBC as Irish Literary Portraits, 1972) are regarded as a landmark in broadcasting.

james simmons james simmons (1933-2001) Poet and Musician

© BBC Educated at Foyle and Londonderry College, Campbell College, Belfast and Leeds University. Founder of the Honest Ulsterman magazine in 1968 and the Poet’s House (a creative writing centre based first on Islandmagee and then in Donegal). His collections included Late but in Earnest (1967) and From the Irish (1985). From the late 1960s, he was a regular contributor and scriptwriter for schools’ programmes on BBC Radio Ulster. His ballad, Claudy, remains one of the most haunting evocations of the Troubles. It featured in his 1972 BBC programme about Northern Ireland, Why doesn’t someone explain?, co-presented with Harry Barton.

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sam thompson sam thompson (1916-1965) Playwright

Born in Belfast, at fourteen he became an apprentice painter at Harland and Wolff. © BBC Sam Hanna Bell commissioned him to do radio features on the shipyards. His first piece, Brush in Hand, was transmitted in 1956, the same year that he wrote what was to be his best known play, Over the Bridge. It was a classic portrait of tensions among the shipyard’s workforce. The controversy surrounding the play postponed its Belfast premiere until Jimmy Ellis staged it at the Group Theatre in 1960. The Northern Ireland Home Service broadcast a version in 1965. A profile of Thompson, written and narrated by Sam Hanna Bell, was broadcast in 1961. His last play, Cemented With Love (1966), was televised after his death.

(1911-95) Playwright and william trevor Actor william trevor Born in Portaferry, (born 1928) Novelist and County Down. Short Story Writer Employed as a house- Born William Trevor Cox in painter on leaving school County Cork. Educated at St at twelve, he later

Columba’s College and Trinity © Harry Snowdon founded and managed College, Dublin. He was a the Ulster Group teacher and a sculptor before Theatre, 1939-1951. His he began writing. A prolific

© BBC first play, Barnum Was Right, novelist and playwright, he has was originally a radio comedy. written many radio and Among his most successful plays was All Souls’ Night television plays. BBC adaptations of his publications (1948). Radio versions were broadcast in 1950 and include The Ballroom of Romance (1972, adapted for 1964. He wrote and acted in The McCooeys, which BBC TV in 1982), Beyond The Pale (1981, televised began in 1949 and attracted a huge listenership. A 1989), August Saturday (broadcast 1989), Events at serious car accident in 1954 greatly restricted his Drimaghleen and One of Ourselves. His fiction has acting career. His short stories featured on the BBC won many prizes including the Hawthornden and NI Home Service during the 1950s. His work, The three Whitbread Awards, and he holds honorary Singing Bird was the first BBC NI television play to be degrees from several Irish and British universities. broadcast in colour in 1971. The Property of Colette Nervi was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999. josephjosephtomelty tomelty

25 3934/ BBC Poet A5 Booklet 10/15/03 3:22 PM Page 28 poets writers martin waddell helenhelen waddell waddell martin waddell (1889-1965) (born 1941) Novelist and Children’s Writer Academic Also publishes under the Born in Tokyo and pseudonym Catherine Sefton. © Louise Anson © Louise educated at Victoria Born in Belfast during the Blitz, Marketing© Puffin College, QUB and he was raised in Newcastle, Oxford,Waddell County Down. He worked as became a medieval a boiler stoker and was a scholar. Her only professional footballer with novel was Peter Fulham before becoming a full-time writer, initially of Abelard (1933). An adult thrillers. Many of his books convey the early play, The Spoilt tensions of present day Northern Ireland. His Buddha, was performed children’s fiction has included ghost stories and at the Grand Opera picture books for younger children. Among his most House in 1915. She has been the subject of two successful works are In a Blue Velvet Dress, Emer’s BBC NI documentaries and the BBC Archive holds a Ghost and Can’t You Sleep, Little Bear? His scripts for 1955 interview in which she discusses her work. children’s television and radio, include BBC NI’s One Potato,Two Potato and Hurley Burley. A BBC Radio Ulster profile was broadcast in 1972, while his Newcastle childhood, featured in a 1989 edition of Today and Yesterday in Northern Ireland.

dg waring dg waring (1891-1977) Novelist and Broadcaster

© BBC Born in England, her family home was in Kilkeel. After service with the Red Cross in World War I, and as a civilian searcher with the Ulster Special Constabulary in the early 1920s, she was active in the British Fascists and the Ulster Protestant League until the early 1930s. From the mid-1930s on, she was a novelist and broadcaster. Her thrillers generally featured the post-war world of the County Down gentry and included Fortune Must Follow (1937) and Not Quite So Black (1948). Her series of short dramas, Special Powers, were broadcast on the Belfast station in 1939. She presented the BBC NI Home Service quiz show, Up Against It, between 1946-60, and its television successor in the early 1960s.

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wb yeats wb yeats (1865-1939) Poet

Born in Dublin and raised there, and in Sligo and London. His first poems were © BBC published in 1886 and his first play, The Countess Cathleen, appeared in 1892. He was one of the founders of the Irish Literary Theatre (later the Abbey) in 1899. The Wind Among The Reeds (1899) and Responsibilities (1914) were significant pre- war collections marking his engagement with political change and social responsibility. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. From 1922 until 1928, he was a Senator in the Irish Free State Oireachtas. The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933) included some of his finest verse. One of the first dramas broadcast by 2BE in Belfast was his 1894 verse play, The Land of Heart’s Desire, produced by Tyrone Guthrie in 1924. His other BBC performances have been chronicled in Roy Foster’s recent biography Yeats: Arch Poet (2003). Radio was the perfect medium for this advocate of spoken verse. The classic Yeats broadcasts from Belfast included a radio version of Oedipus, which was preceded by a talk about the play’s history. Yeats was paid thirty five guineas for this 1931 broadcast. For the BBC in London (whose fee, fifteen guineas, was less generous than Belfast’s!), he made three programmes in 1937. In the first two of these programmes, he selected middlebrow poems (by Newbolt, Chesterton and de la Mare) and demonstrated how the declaiming of poetry could appeal to all. The last of the three programmes was broadcast in October 1937 and was his final BBC performance. It featured his renditions of his own early favourites, including Innisfree and The Fiddler of Dooney.

"I place my hope on the water in this little boat of the language… Not knowing where it might end up"

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

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credits Text: creditsJane Leonard Additional research: Lynda Atcheson Francis Jones Gordon Lucy Angela Reid Design: Coppernoise Communications Framing: John Orsi and Jay Large, Canvas

BBC NI wishes to thank all of those who have assisted in the development of this exhibition, including Edna Longley, Michael Longley, Fergus Hanna Bell, Douglas Carson, Sophia Hillan, staff at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, the Ulster Museum, Stephen Beckett,Tracey Leavy, Margaret McKee, Paul Haslam, Glen Cartmill, Paul Sharkey, Geraldine McCourt, Rachael Moore and Mark Adair.

Further Reading: Rex Cathcart’s A Most Contrary Region and Dr Jonathan Bardon’s Beyond the Studio (Blackstaff Press) contacts

BBC Informationcontacts 08700 100 222* Text phone for people who are deaf or have a hearing impairment is: 08700 100 212 *Calls charged at national rate and may be recorded BBC NI Accountability Department 028 90 338 210 The Secretary, BBC NI, Broadcasting House, Ormeau Avenue, Belfast BT2 8HQ

BBC NI Archive at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum 028 90 428 428 The BBC Archive, c/o the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra, Co Down BT18 0EU Email: archives.ni@.co.uk

For information on how to obtain tickets for BBC recordings, please log on to bbc.co.uk/ni/tickets

Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of biographical and other information contained within this booklet, BBC NI would welcome feedback on any omissions or inaccuracies, and will endeavour to rectify these in any reprint/s of this publication.

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An early recording by Sam Hanna Bell (on right) and the Outside Broadcast team.