Dunmore Amateur Dramatic Society or (D.A.D.S. as it became known) had its genesis either in the mists of time or in Mary Howley’s pub ten years ago – depending on your point of view. I tend to favour the former myself because Drama has been part and parcel of this little village in North East Galway for much farther back than anyone living can remember.

There are photographs in existence from the early years of the 20^th century which show that there was a drama group active in Dunmore even then. More recent folklore records some of the escapades of latter years which may be recounted in another article at a later date! It is beyond doubt that there was an active drama scene in Dunmore in the early part of the 20^th century.***

However everything dramatic happening in Dunmore today can be traced back to the year 1955 when a group from Dunmore entered the fledgling drama festival circuit with the Frank Carney play “The Righteous are Bold” . They were extremely successful, reaching the All Ireland finals. Among the cast of that memorable play was a young woman named Margaret Walsh who won a “Best Actress” award and who went on to become the director and producer of many fine plays over the next forty years or so. Sadly, in 2007, the year of our greatest triumph to date, when D.A.D.S. reached the All Ireland Finals with Tom Murphy’s “A Thief of a Christmas”, Margaret passed away after a long battle with illness.

I came to Dunmore in the early 1970’s, having already developed an enduring love for drama in my native Crossna (near Boyle in County Roscommon) and my very first memory is of a superb production by Margaret of the Brian Friel classic “The Loves of Cass Maguire”. It wasn’t long before I found my way into the local drama group and under Margaret’s wonderful direction I worked my way through many roles (big and small) in pays such as “The Black Stranger”, “Gaslight”, “A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant”, “The Wood of the Whispering” and “I do Not Like thee Dr. Fell” – to name but a few.

In the mid eighties the drama group began to die out and although there were a couple of productions (“The Year of the Hiker” and “Strike Happy”) the impetus seemed to have gone. Dunmore Choir which, under the baton of Mrs Una Mooney had developed quite a reputation, took to the stage with a series of revues called "Showtimes". These consisted of choral extracts from popular musicals interspersed with comedy sketches and one act dramas. Margaret Walsh was the producer for these presentations and I was drafted in to organise the interval entertainment. These were wonderful shows featuring elaborate sets for choruses from Oliver, South Pacific, Oklahoma etc. etc..... The sets were magically changed during the intervals while we (the drama people) presented front-of-stage sketches such as The Swallow Tailed Coat, A Pound on Demand, On the Outside, Dead but He won't Lie Down or monologues such as The Cremation of Sam Magee (Tommie Keenan), With 'er 'ead Tucked Underneath 'er Arm (Peter McConville), or The Ballad of Peter Gilligan (Brian O'Malley). We also did some comic interludes such as The Ancient Irish Custom of "Hah-hooing" (Micheal O'Liodean and Yours truly!), Goodness Gracious Me (Peter McConville and Claire Finnegan) or Old Man River (Stan Freeberg Version!). These are only a few of the very wonderful memories I have from those magical years of Showtime.

So successful were these Showtimes that a head of steam built up to put on a full musical. Although much talked of, it was only when Joan Macdonnell came back to Dunmore that the idea really took flight. Joan and Margaret took on the mammoth task of producing a musical and of course wild horses wouldn’t have kept me off the stage even though I couldn’t hold a note to save my life! A few non singing roles followed in “Calamity Jane”, “South Pacific”, “Oklahoma” and “Fiddler on the Roof” but I still retained the urge to get back to straight drama.

The opportunity presented itself when, in or around 2001, Ollie Turner (he of Galway Bay FM fame), organised a weekend festival of Music and drama to be held in Dunmore in October. In the very first festival we had a production of “The Field” by Peadar de Burca’s  Morwax. The festival club that night was in Mary Howley’s pub and after one (or more) too many I had the temerity to suggest that it was a pity we didn’t have our own drama showcased in our own festival. Of course Ollie and Brian Keating, never a pair to miss such a golden opportunity, put it up to me: “You’re long enough talking about it. Can we take it we’ll have a Dunmore play in next year’s festival?”  What could I say?

By August of the following year I had done nothing about this play and time was getting short. However I had made a commitment and by hook or by crook I had to deliver. I got a small group together and after two meetings we decided to attempt Hugh Leonard’s “Da”. It was very much a rush job but we made it and in six weeks we presented our offering to the people of Dunmore. I think I can speak for everyone involved when I say that we were overwhelmed by the local response. Hardly had the curtain fallen on the final night than there were people talking about our next production. For that production we were “Dunmore Amateur Drama Group”. The name “Dunmore Amateur Drama Society” and the acronym D.A.D.S. only came later. However we now proudly trace our roots back to that night in October 2002 when the following cast took the stage with a memorable performance of that seminal Hugh Leonard play.

Charlie (now)…………Martin Silke

Oliver…………………Philip Macdonnell

Da…………………….John Morris

Mother………………..Eleanor Sheridan

Charlie (then)…………Ollie Turner

Mr. Drumm…………...Barry Murray

Mary Tate..........……...Marie Howley

Mrs Prynne…………...Angela Reddington

Sad to report, that was Angela’s last performance. She played a wonderful Mrs. Prynne while still recovering from the after effects of her chemotherapy. She died five years later on the night that D.A.D.S. presented “A Thief of a Christmas”  at the Drama Festival in Claremorris – a night that proved to be the start of another memorable journey.

                                                                        George Bruen (12-04-2010 )

***  See article in following pages "Drama In Dunmore"