Kilmainham Gaol is a former prison in Kilmainham, Dublin, Ireland. It is now a museum run by the Office of Public Works, an agency of the Government of Ireland. Many Irish revolutionaries, including the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, were imprisoned and executed in the prison by the orders of the UK Government.
Hilton Edwards was an English-born Irish actor, lighting designer, and theatrical producer. He co-founded the Gate Theatre with his partner Micheál Mac Liammóir and two others, and has been referred to as the founder of Irish theatre. He was one of the most recognisable figures in the arts in 20th century Ireland.
Brendan Francis Aidan Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, and Irish Republican, an activist who wrote in both English and Irish. His widely acknowledged alcohol dependence, despite attempts to treat it, impacted his creative capacities and contributed to health and social problems which curtailed his artistic output and finally his life. In 2023 reports emerged of his allegedly sexually violent behaviour against a young New York publicist, Letty Cottin Pogrebin in the early 1960s.
Peadar Kearney was an Irish republican and composer of numerous rebel songs. In 1907 he wrote the lyrics to "A Soldier's Song", now the Irish national anthem. He was the uncle of Irish writers Brendan Behan, Brian Behan, and Dominic Behan.
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born Irish actor, director, screenwriter, and producer of film, television, and theatre. Born in New York City to Irish parents, he was raised in Ireland and England, began his career in England during the 1950s and became well known for the titular role, secret agent John Drake in the ITC espionage programme Danger Man (1960–1968). He then produced and created The Prisoner (1967–1968), a surrealistic television series in which he featured as Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is abducted and imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village.
Events from the year 1959 in Ireland.
Sylvia May Laura Syms was an English stage and screen actress. Her best-known film roles include My Teenage Daughter (1956), Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award, Ice Cold in Alex (1958), No Trees in the Street (1959), Victim (1961), and The Tamarind Seed (1974).
Borstal Boy is a 1958 autobiographical book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan, who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Irish republican stance and warming to his British fellow prisoners. From a technical standpoint, the novel is chiefly notable for the art with which it captures the lively dialogue of the Borstal inmates, with a variety of the many subtly distinctive accents of Britain and Ireland intact on the page. Ultimately, Behan demonstrated by his skillful dialogue that working class Irish Catholics and English Protestants actually had more in common with one another through class than they had supposed, and that alleged barriers of religion and ethnicity were merely superficial and imposed by a fearful middle class.
The Hostage is a 1958 English-language play, with songs, by Irish playwright Brendan Behan. It consists of a much longer text, with songs, expanded from a one-act Irish language play An Giall also by Behan.
David Kelly was an Irish actor who had regular roles in several film and television works from the 1950s onwards. One of the most recognisable voices and faces of Irish stage and screen, Kelly was known for his roles as Rashers Tierney in Strumpet City, Cousin Enda in Me Mammy, the builder Mr O'Reilly in Fawlty Towers, Albert Riddle in Robin's Nest, and Grandpa Joe in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Another notable role was as Michael O'Sullivan in Waking Ned Devine.
"The Auld Triangle" is a song by Dick Shannon, often attributed to Brendan Behan, who made it famous when he included it in his 1954 play The Quare Fellow. He first performed it publicly in 1952 on the RTÉ radio programme 'The Ballad Maker's Saturday Night', produced by Mícheál Ó hAodha. Behan's biographer, Michael O'Sullivan, recorded, 'It has been believed for many years that Brendan wrote that famous prison song but Mícheál Ó hAodha says he never laid claim to authorship. Indeed he asked him to send a copyright to another Dubliner, Dick Shannon.' When he recorded the song for Brendan Behan Sings Irish Folksongs and Ballads, Behan introduced it with these words: 'This song was written by a person who will never hear it recorded, because he's not in possession of a gramophone. He's ... he's ... pretty much of a tramp.'
Walter Macken, was born in Galway, Ireland. He was a writer of short stories, novels and plays.
Kathleen Florence Lynn was an Irish Sinn Féin politician, activist and medical doctor.
Derry Power is an Irish actor born in Dublin. He appeared in the first production of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow at Dublin's Pike Theatre in 1954. He is best known for playing management genius Seamus Finnegan in the BBC Television sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, with the classic line "Would you be having a joke there with a simple, tongue-tied Irishman from the land of the bogs and the little people?". In a long stage career he has featured in many plays in the Abbey Theatre; he has appeared in TV series from Z-Cars to Ballykissangel and in many films made in Ireland.
Harry Brogan was an Irish actor often in comic roles. He was part of the Abbey Theatre from 1939 - 1976.
Frank O'Donovan was an Irish actor, singer and songwriter. He is best remembered for playing the character of Batty Brennan for 10 years in Ireland's first TV soap, The Riordans.
The Pike Theatre was a theatre located in Herbert Lane, Dublin, Ireland.The building was the Mews for No 6 Herbert Place
Peadar Lamb was an Irish actor. He was known for his roles in numerous Irish-language stage productions, including playing King Fin Varra in the television series Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog, and lending his voice to Old Piggley Winks on the children's television series Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks.
Ryan Andrews is an Irish actor from Donaghmede, Dublin. He is best known for his role as Sean Cassidy in the Irish soap opera, Fair City, for which he has starred in since 2008.
Dermot Kelly was an Irish actor often in comic roles, in films and on TV. He achieved popularity as a recurring tramp character, sidekick to Arthur Haynes's vagrant, in TV's The Arthur Haynes Show in the early 1960s. Previously on stage with Dublin's Abbey Theatre, he was in the original stage and film versions of Brendan Behan's The Quare Fellow, in 1954 and 1962, respectively.
