Ossory Players played leading role in stage dreams of Kilkenny

Amongst the papers donated to Kilkenny Archives in recent years is a small collection of largely ‘family’ papers which came from the Bligh Family, of Circular Road, Kilkenny. Adrian Bligh and his wife Nin, née Duggan (Monster House family) were well-known figures round Kilkenny.
The couple’s children and grandson donated the material.

Amongst the files catalogued to-date from the Bligh Papers are some 27 files which document the activities of The Ossory Players, a local amateur drama group which was founded in December 1943.
Their first production season was 1944. Officers and early supporters of the Ossory Players included: David De Loughry, Dr Walsh (CEO Kilkenny Vocational Committee who had a hand in many local cultural projects including, I believe, the Kilkenny Art Gallery Society the forerunner of The Butler Gallery), T De Loughry, P Gleeson (at least once mayor of Kilkenny) MP O’Neill, Mrs M Kennedy, Miss May Walshe, Mrs O’Callaghan, Miss B Monaghan, Mrs T Kearney, J Holohan, Oliver Kelly (Corner House and later Monster House), C Ryan, Tom Crotty (and briefly his brother Ray Crotty, later the anti-EEC economist) and many others.
Members of the O’Carroll family were also involved and I note that a Mary O’Carroll was director of music on many occasions. The Misses Gertrude and Florence Griffen of 7 Patrick St., were also noted musicians having been trained abroad.

A Miss Olga Mohun, who had a school of ballet in Dublin, tutored the Players for at least four years from 1948 to 1952.
The sisters Kitty Lanigan and Rita Harte were also active supporters. Both these ladies I remember well. Rita had a passion for recording the Symbols of the Passion from Kilkenny and Tipperary headstones while Kitty was one of the mainstays of the KAS.
One of my early memories of the latter is being invited to her ‘new’ home near Windgap Cottage for a drink and sitting under a portrait of the ‘Pope’ O’ Mahoney.
Looking at the programme (illustrated here) for Babes in the Wood which was given at The Kilkenny Theatre on January 9, 1949, I note the names of Nuala Crotty, Anne Mulhall, Helen Lanigan, Dan Kennedy and Philip Clohosey.
Children then, they starred as fairies and imps in that production. At least three of this quintet are happily still with us, living respectively in Kilkenny, Fermanagh and Cork.

The ‘Kilkenny Theatre’ was of course Stallards on Patrick St., which is a restaurant to-day. One feature of the theatre was a corridor lined with framed photographs of past players and reproductions. One has to wonder there that collection is to-day? A vital part of our history. The late Peter Farrelly’s fine book comes to mind here.
Two years into their existence the Players presented Lennox Robinson’s ‘Is Life Worth Living’ which is the study of the effect of introducing masterpieces of the Russian and Scandinavian dramatists to the inhabitants of a sea-side town, but it may as well be a rural town anywhere in Ireland.
The reactions of the people are somewhat startling, but prove more funny than fatal. This was regarded as one of Lennox Robinson’s best works.

The critic went onto say ‘...and when it is played by artists whose skill has been proved beyond any doubt it is sure to provide high-class entertainment’.

The Ossory Players ably carried on the tradition that had been handed down to them from the heady days of the Kilkenny Private Theatre of over 120 years earlier, which included Floods, Tighes and none other than Thomas Moore himself, who was known as the Bard of Erin, who met his wife in Kilkenny.
Since 1820 visiting groups and locally-based dramatic groups kept this age-old tradition alive, not only in Kilkenny city but also in the countryside. There are letters in the collection from a Miss Nellie Bolger of The Rower Dramatic Society.
My mother occasionally spoke of a similar group in Inistioge. There even exists two large black and white photographs of the members, which she had in her album.
The Inistioge group included Nano Murphy, Lizzie Singleton, Molly McGrea, two Meany sisters (later Mrs O’ Donnell and Ashe), and various Roches, Murrays and Suttons.
The Ossory Players went on tour to such distant places as Johnstown and Freshford. Distant by virtue of the fact that it was during the ‘Emergency’ when there were very few cars or indeed very little mechanised transport of any nature apart from turf-fuelled CIE trains.
One wonders how they managed the theatrical props?

In 1952 Patrick Gleeson, then Mayor of Kilkenny, donated a perpetual challenge cup which was to be awarded annually to the best Panto performer.
Ossory Players had just put on their first pantomime. Pantos such as Aladdin, Cinderella and Jack in the Beanstalk feature in their programme.
As a child I remember we used to travel from Inistioge to St Michael’s Theatre, New Ross every early January to be delighted and entertained.
I’m sure the same memories are no doubt held by many people from around Kilkenny due entirely to The Ossory Players. I wonder where the Gleeson Cup is today?

In May 1985, £416.09 money in the account of the dormant Ossory Players was gifted by the surviving members to the Kilkenny Theatre Fund, which is today the Watergate Theatre.
The Ossory Players monetary gift may have been relatively small in the overall scheme of things but the role they played in the cultural life of the city was immense. To them in no small part we owe the existence of the Watergate Theatre.
The next segment of papers in the Bligh collection relates to the Kilkenny Horticultural Society.