Sheelagh Flanagan (25 December 1925 – 3 May 2018) was a Northern Irish actress, costume designer, artist's agent, gallery owner and peace activist.

Early life

Sheelagh Mabel Garvan was born in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

on Christmas Day 1925, the daughter of a local shopkeeper. She left school at the age of fourteen and joined the civil service where she was later promoted to become private secretary to Northern Ireland's Attorney General. Her interest in the performing arts led her to join the Arts Theatre in Belfast. Following an encounter with the theatre director Mary O'Malley, Garvan joined the Lyric Players where she was to meet her future husband who designed sets. In 1959 Garvan married the artist Terence Flanagan. Garvan came from a staunch Unionist family but she converted to Roman Catholicism upon her marriage.

Career

Flanagan was a skilled dressmaker from a young age and once declined a dressmaking scholarship in London, but after her marriage she became involved in the production of sets and costumes at the Lyric Theatre. Flanagan's early career and outlook was influenced by her neighbours John and Ruby Hewitt, when they lived at Mount Charles, off Botanic Avenue in Belfast. She was influenced by the couples' austere living and their socialist outlook. Flanagan retired from acting in the early 1960s due to the demands of family life. Her interest in the performing arts did not wane and in 1973 she made a return to the theatre by designing costumes for Interplay, a company who brought educational theatre into schools and communities. Flanagan organised an exhibition to raise funds for victims of civil disturbances in Belfast in the autumn of 1969. The exhibition at Queen's University consisted of donated works from thirty artists including her husband,

Gerard Dillon Gerard Dillon (191614 June 1971) was an Irish painter and artist. Life Dillon was born in Belfast, he left school at the age of fourteen and for seven years worked as a painter and decorator, mostly in London. From an early age he was intere ...

, William Scott and Graham Gingles,

Mercy Hunter Mercy Hunter ''HRUA PPRUA ARCA MBE'' (22 January 1910 – 20 July 1989) was a Northern Irish artist, calligrapher and teacher. Hunter was a founding member of the Ulster Society of Women Artists, where she was later to become president and she w ...

Carolyn Mulholland Carolyn Mulholland '' HRHA'', ''HRUA'' (born 1944) is an Irish sculptor. Life Carolyn Mulholland was born in 1944 in Lurgan, County Armagh. She attended the Belfast College of Art, and in 1965 was awarded the Ulster Arts Club prize for sculp ...

and

Cherith McKinstry Cherith McKinstry (4 March 1928 -October 2004) was an Irish painter and sculptor. Biography Cherith Boyd was born in Powick, Worcestershire to Lilian Goodwin, a nurse, and Arthur Boyd a psychiatric doctor. She was the middle child of three gi ...

. In 1974 she was appointed office administrator for the community group Peace Point, founded by the Peace People in conjunction with the

Corrymeela Community The Corrymeela Community was founded in 1965 by Ray Davey, along with John Morrow and Alex Watson, as an organisation seeking to aid individuals and communities which suffered through the violence and polarisation of the Northern Irish confl ...

. Peace Point organised educational programmes aimed at breaking down sectarian barriers and uniting the many peace groups across Northern Ireland. Flanagan was a co-founder and trustee of the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust when they formed in 1979. Flanagan established the Shambles Gallery in Hillsborough, County Down, in 1971. Her husband, Patric Stevenson, who at the time was President of the Royal Ulster Academy, and the Lisburn industrialist Robert Wilson served as directors. The inaugural exhibition showed the works of F E McWilliam, William Scott, George Campbell,

, Norah McGuinness and

Colin Middleton Colin Middleton (29 January 1910 – 23 December 1983) was a Northern Irish landscape artist, figure painter, and surrealist. Middleton's prolific output in an eclectic variety of modernist styles is characterised by an intense inner visio ...

amongst a dozen artists. Flanagan became a promoter of her husband's work, in addition to acting as an agent for other Ulster artists including F E McWilliam. The gallery was closed in 1973 due to civil unrest and reopened in 1985. F E McWilliam showed a bronze of Sheelagh Flanagan at the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts annual exhibition of 1978. In the mid-1980s Flanagan became the agent for the sculptor

Deborah Brown Deborah Brown (27 September 1927 – 8 April 2023) was a Northern Irish sculptor. She is well known in Ireland for her pioneering exploration of the medium of fibre glass in the 1960s and established herself as one of the country's leading scu ...

whose animal sculpture's were exhibited for the first time at Flanagan's Shambles Gallery in 1989.''Deborah Brown: from painting to sculpture'', 2005, p.25 Flanagan sat on the board of the Irish National Ballet in 1982. She was close friends with many of Ulster's literary, dramatic and visual artists of the fifties and sixties, including John Hewitt,

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

and

Jimmy Ellis Jimmy Ellis may refer to: * Jimmy Ellis (boxer) (1940–2014), American boxer * Jimmy "Orion" Ellis (1945–1998), American singer * Jimmy "Preacher" Ellis (born 1935), American musician * Jimmy Ellis (1938–2012), lead singer of The Trammps * Ji ...

. In 1987 Flanagan held a commemorative exhibition, ''A Poet's Pictures'', for John Hewitt consisting of pictures collected by the late Hewitt and his wife. The accompanying catalogue contained tributes from artists and poets.

Death and legacy

Sheelagh Flanagan died in Belfast on 3 May 2018. She was survived by three children. Her husband predeceased her by seven years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flanagan, Sheelagh 1925 births 2018 deaths British stage actresses 20th-century actresses from Northern Ireland Actresses from Belfast Stage actresses from Northern Ireland