The Comeback Girl

It took a bit of gentle arm-twisting, maybe even the persuasive “go on, go on, go on” tactic for which Mrs. Doyle has become so famous, but ultimately it was the quality of the script and the part which lured Dee Gallagher from her self-imposed theatrical exile. Having turned down numerous offers of parts over the past ten years, Dee was eventually won over by Mary Halpin’s hilarious script. “I have to admit I was a bit lukewarm about it when Meg Leahy first asked me, but I agreed to read the script, and, really, it was too good to turn down. It’s a terrific play, and a lovely part, and it’s great to be back”, she says. After such a long absence, the return to the rigours of rehearsal was naturally a bit daunting initially.

“Initially, it was a bit of an effort to get out to rehearsals. I felt as if I’d just come out of the ark. A lot of the people in this play weren’t even born when I first started. I really felt ancient. But they’re a great crew, and that sense of camaraderie which is so important in any cast, has really taken off. I can genuinely feel the buzz coming back. The early trepidation has disappeared, and I find myself actually looking forward to rehearsals. It’s a lovely feeling – almost like starting all over again”.

Which is a good a cue as any to go back to the early days, when Dee, her sisters Kit and Joan, Frankie Brannigan, Liam Rooney, and Seán Gallagher, now her husband of twenty-five years, were collectively known as the Innisfree Players and, prompted and promoted in equal measure by two Ursuline nuns, Sr. David and Sr. Kieran, they put on a production of “The Playboy of the Western World” in he Gillooly Hall. “We were really raw. None of us had ever been on stage before, but we had a great interest in drama, and there was a great sense of excitement about the production”, Dee recalls. Despite the rawness, she obviously made an impression as “Pegeen Mike”, for not long afterwards Liam Mc Kinney invited her to play the lad role of “Blanche Du Bois” in Sligo Drama Circle’s 1970 production of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”.

Not unlike the mixed feelings with which she initially approached her current role, Dee remembers feeling “slightly daunted” by the challenge of such a demanding role at such a formative time in her acting career. “It was a massive challenge, because I had hardly any experience. But the established Drama Circle people were really brilliant – people like the late Eddie Fitzpatrick and his wife Joan; Cormac Sheridan and, of course, the wonderful Liam Mc Kinney, all made me feel very much at home. And, of course, almost all of my friends from the Innisfree Players had parts as well, which meant I wasn’t totally isolated”. It was to be an auspicious debut with the Drama Circle, as Streetcar went on to win the overall award at the All-Ireland Amateur Drama Festival finals in Athlone, the last Sligo group to do so.

Not surprisingly, Dee went on to play countless memorable roles with the Drama Circle in the following years, recalling her festival award-winning role as “Big Mama” in the 1975 production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, and her role as Mary Magdalene in the 1980 production of “Triumph of Calvary” in the Holy Cross Friary, as particular highlights. Another major role was for Everyman in 1985, playing Elizabeth Proctor opposite Columb Mc Bride in the acclaimed production of “The Crucible” at the Hawk’s Well. Reviewing the play in The Sligo Champion at the time, “Colbert” was ecstatic in his praise, favourable comparing the performances of Dee, Columb Mc Bride, and Marianne Fahy with professional productions he had seen in London and the Abbey in Dublin. “That was probably the most challenging role I’ve ever played. It was a very demanding play, but very rewarding. For whatever reason, we didn’t take it on the festival circuit, but I have no hesitation in saying that production would have done exceptionally well at festivals”, Dee maintains.

Her last venture on stage was in the highly successful “A Crucial Week in the Life of a Grocer’s Assistant” in 1987. She cannot recall that she sat down and made a conscious decision to “retire” but with her daughter, Clodagh, who has Cerebral Palsy, reaching teenage years she didn’t need the distraction of rehearsals. “Clodagh got a big thrill from seeing me on stage, and she’s mad keen to see this new play, so there’s no problem in that regard. But I just felt that she needed me more than I needed drama when she was younger, and I have no regrets at all about giving it up for the past ten years. Indeed had it not been for Seán’s encouragement I probably wouldn’t have stayed in drama as long as I did in the first place, so it’s probably fitting that it was his encouragement which helped convince me that this was a good time to go back”, she explains.

Looking back over the years, she nominates Tony Wehrly, Shane Cleary, Cormac Sheridan, Joan Fitzpatrick, Maria Mc Dermottroe, Meg Leahy, John Caheny, Columb Mc Bride and Gerry Ryan as the “finest bunch of actors you’d find anywhere in the country”, and she has a special place for the late Liam Mc Kinney. “Liam was a pure genius, a man before his time. Certainly, anything I know about drama I learned from Liam, and there’s no way I would have been involved at this level at all had it not been for him. I genuinely feel his work for drama in this town has never fully been appreciated”, she says.

As a member of the cast which last brought the All-Ireland Drama title to Sligo, Dee id hoping that this coming week will see the gap bridged by the Silver Apples production of “No Comet Seen”. “It would be a great boost for amateur drama in the town if they could bring home the big prize, and with such a strong Everyman influence in the persons of Gerry Ryan and Columb Mc Bride, I’m sure they’re quite capable of doing it. We’ll all be rooting for them”, she says. In the meantime, she’s got the small matter of her own comeback to occupy her. “I’m really looking forward to it. It’s an hilarious play, a real crowd pleaser, and I can guarantee audiences will not be disappointed”.

An interview with Dee Gallagher by Jim Gray in The Sligo Champion, May 8th, 1997