Don't be fooled by Cathal O'Shannon's story of a literary legend.
Cathal O'Shannon reports from in and around Loughrea, county Galway where imaginary writer Margaret Kildysart is meant to have come from some time at the end of the last century.
Her strange life and rather mysterious death are not spoken of any more here in Loughrea where she was born
Margaret is portrayed as a literary figure in the great Anglo-Irish literary revival and as a friend to many Irish and international writers including WB Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Bernard Shaw and Rupert Brooke. Cathal O'Shannon meets some of the imaginary friends, admirers, academics, critics and students of Margaret Kildysart, who are played by RTÉ staff. John B Keane even makes an appearance and proclaims Margaret Kildysart to be the greatest ever female Irish dramatist. The report also includes photographs of different women who are meant to be Margaret. Margaret is also famed with winning the award as 'the tallest lady novelist of 1917'.
Today in Loughrea she might as well never have existed
This episode of 'Newsbeat' was broadcast on 1 April 1971. The presenter is Cathal O'Shannon.
