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The Shadow Of A Gunman
''The Shadow of a Gunman'' is a 1923 tragicomedy play by Seán O'Casey set during the Irish War of Independence. It centres on the mistaken identity of a building tenant who is thought to be an IRA assassin. It is the first in O'Casey's "Dublin Trilogy" - the other two being '' Juno and the Paycock'' (1924) and ''The Plough and the Stars'' (1926). Setting Dublin. May 1920. Each act takes place in Seumus Shield's room in a tenement in Hilljoy Square. Synopsis Donal Davoren is a poet who has come to room with Seumus Shields in a poor, Dublin tenement slum. Many of the residents of the tenement mistake Donal for an IRA gunman on the run. Donal does not refute this notoriety, especially when it wins him the affection of Minnie Powell, an attractive young woman in the tenement. Meanwhile, Seumus' business partner, Mr Maguire drops a bag off at Seumus' apartment before participating in an ambush in which he is killed. Seumus thinks the bag contains household items for re-sale. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey ( ga, Seán Ó Cathasaigh ; born John Casey; 30 March 1880 – 18 September 1964) was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes. Early life O'Casey was born at 85 Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, as John Casey, the son of Michael Casey, a mercantile clerk (who worked for the Irish Church Missions), and Susan Archer. His parents were Protestants and he was a member of the Church of Ireland, baptised on 28 July 1880 in St. Mary's parish, confirmed at St John the Baptist Church in Clontarf, and an active member of St. Barnabas' Church on Sheriff Street until his mid-20s, when he drifted away from the church. There is a church called 'Saint Burnupus' in his play '' Red Roses For Me''. O'Casey's father died when Seán was just six years of age, leaving a family of thirteen. The family lived a peripatetic life thereafter, moving from house to house around north Dublin. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Boyne
The Battle of the Boyne ( ga, Cath na Bóinne ) was a battle in 1690 between the forces of the deposed King James II of England and Ireland, VII of Scotland, and those of King William III who, with his wife Queen Mary II (his cousin and James's daughter), had acceded to the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1689. The battle took place across the River Boyne close to the town of Drogheda in the Kingdom of Ireland, modern-day Republic of Ireland, and resulted in a victory for William. This turned the tide in James's failed attempt to regain the British crown and ultimately aided in ensuring the continued Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. The battle took place on 1 July 1690 O.S. William's forces defeated James's army, which consisted mostly of raw recruits. Although the Williamite War in Ireland continued until the signing of the Treaty of Limerick in October 1691, James fled to France after the Boyne, never to return. Background The battle was a major encounter in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronagh Gallagher
Bronagh Gallagher (born 26 April 1972) is an Irish singer and actress from Northern Ireland. Gallagher had her first acting role in the 1989 television movie '' Dear Sarah''. In 2020, she was listed at number 33 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Early life During her teenage years, she got involved in drama and music activities through school and joined a local amateur dramatics group called the Oakgrove Theatre Company. At one time she was a backing singer in a local band called The Listener (1989–90). The band practised in a garage that belonged to Kevin McLaughlin, the drummer. Laurence Harkin, aka L, was lead singer and guitar. Career A former hairdresser, Gallagher's big break came when she starred as Bernie in '' The Commitments'' (1991). She followed up with small parts in ''Pulp Fiction'' (1994) and '' Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'' (1999). Other film appearances include '' You, Me & Marley'' (1992), '' Mary Reilly'' (1996), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Branagh
Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (; born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has served as its president since 2015. He has won an Academy Award, four BAFTAs (plus two honorary awards), two Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours and knighted on 9 November 2012. He was made a Freeman of his native city of Belfast in January 2018. In 2020, he was listed at number 20 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Branagh has both directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays, of which he is a devoted fan, including ''Henry V'' (1989), ''Much Ado About Nothing'' (1993), ''Othello'' (1995), ''Hamlet'' (1996), '' Love's Labour's Lost'' (2000), and ''As You Like It'' (2006). He was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Director for ''Henry V'' and for Best Adapted Screenplay for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donal McCann
Donal McCann (7 May 1943 – 17 July 1999) was an Irish stage, film, and television actor best known for his roles in the works of Brian Friel and for his lead role in John Huston's last film, '' The Dead''. In 2020, he was listed as number 45 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Biography Early life McCann was born in Terenure in Dublin. His father was John J. McCann, a playwright and politician who served twice as Dublin's Lord Mayor. Although Donal had acted in a production of his father's ''Give Me a Bed of Roses'' at Terenure College in 1962, he briefly studied architecture before taking a job as a trainee sub-editor at the ''Evening Press'' which allowed him to pursue part-time acting classes at the Abbey School of Actors at the same time. He joined the Abbey Players in the late 1960s. Career Among his most important early roles were '' Cuchulainn'' in W. B. Yeats's '' On Baile Strand'' (1966), and as Estragon in a seminal production of Samuel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinéad Cusack
Sinéad Moira Cusack ( ) is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and ''Evening Standard'' Awards for her performance in Sebastian Barry's ''Our Lady of Sligo''. Cusack has received two Tony Award nominations: once for Best Leading Actress in ''Much Ado About Nothing'' (1985), and again for Best Featured Actress in ''Rock 'n' Roll'' (2008). She has also received five Olivier Award nominations for ''As You Like'' (1981), ''The Maid's Tragedy'' (also 1981), ''The Taming of the Shrew'' (1983), ''Our Lady of Sligo'' (1998) and ''Rock 'n' Roll'' (2007). In 2020, she was listed at number 25 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Early life Cusack was born Jane Moira Cusack in Dalkey, County Dublin, the daughter of actress Maureen Cusack (born Mary Margaret Kiely) and actor Cyril Cusack. She is the sister of actres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Rea
Stephen Rea ( ; born 31 October 1946) is an Irish film and stage actor. Rea has appeared in films such as ''V for Vendetta'', ''Michael Collins'', ''Interview with the Vampire'' and ''Breakfast on Pluto''. Rea was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Neil Jordan's thriller ''The Crying Game'' (1992). He has had important roles in the Hugo Blick TV series '' The Shadow Line'' and ''The Honourable Woman'', for which he won a BAFTA Award. In 2020, ''The Irish Times'' ranked Rea the 13th greatest Irish film actor of all-time. Early life Rea was born in Belfast; his father was a bus driver and his mother a housewife. He studied English at the Queen's University Belfast and drama at the Abbey Theatre School in Dublin. In the late 1970s, he acted in the Focus Company in Dublin with Gabriel Byrne and Colm Meaney. Career After appearing on the stage and in television and film for many years in Ireland and England, Rea came to international attention when he was nomina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded public-service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks worldwide. Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming, and while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind previously broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvin Rakoff
Alvin Rakoff (born Abraham Rakoff; February 6, 1927) is a Canadian director of film, television and theatre productions. He has worked with actors including Laurence Olivier, Peter Sellers, Sean Connery, Judi Dench, Rex Harrison, Rod Steiger, Henry Fonda and Ava Gardner. He gave Sean Connery his first leading role when he was an unknown extra, and gave Alan Rickman his first job when he was a drama student. Other actors he worked with early in their careers include Michael Crawford, Jeremy Irons, and Michael Caine. Early life Rakoff's mother came from Rovno in Ukraine; his father was from Voronezh in Russia. His parents, secular Jews, met in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is the third of seven children. His parents had a shop in Kensington Market. After graduation from the University of Toronto, he became a journalist and began writing for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's nascent television service. He was seconded by the CBC to visit "the country where TV first started - Englan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (; born Dreyfus; October 29, 1947) is an American actor. He is known for starring in popular films during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, including ''American Graffiti'' (1973), ''Jaws'' (1975), ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' (1977), ''The Goodbye Girl'' (1977), '' The Competition'' (1980), '' Stand by Me'' (1986), '' Down and Out in Beverly Hills'' (1986), '' Stakeout'' (1987), ''Always'' (1989), ''What About Bob?'' (1991), and '' Mr. Holland's Opus'' (1995). Dreyfuss won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1978 for ''The Goodbye Girl'' (at the time, the youngest-ever actor, at age 30, to win) and was nominated in 1995 for ''Mr. Holland's Opus''. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for two Screen Actor's Guild Awards for his portrayal of former Secretary of State Alexander Haig in the Showtime Networks ensemble film ''The Day Reagan Was Shot''. Early life Dreyfuss was born on October 29, 1947, in Brookl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Academy Awards cerem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Converse
Frank Converse (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor. Early life Converse was born in 1938 in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1962, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drama at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Career On Broadway, he starred in '' The Philadelphia Story'' (1980), ''Design for Living'' (1984), ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' (1988), and ''Lady in the Dark'' (1994). Off-Broadway, he starred in The ''House of Blue Leaves'' (1971) and '' South Pacific''. In 2007, he appeared at the Hartford Stage in Thornton Wilder's ''Our Town'' with Hal Holbrook. Converse also did television commercials for Black & Decker in the late 1980s. Converse was the star of five television series: ''Coronet Blue'', ''N.Y.P.D.'' (not to be confused with ''NYPD Blue''), '' Movin' On'', '' The Family Tree'', and '' Dolphin Cove''. He played Harry O'Neill on ''One Life to Live'' and Ned Simon on ''As the World Turns'', and he had a bri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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