As our National Theatre celebrates its 120th birthday, RTÉ's Clíodhna Ní Anluain - the producer for Spreading The News, a celebratory collaboration with The Abbey - considers some of their shared stories and associations... listen to Spreading The News below.
Anniversaries, significant dates and milestones focus the mind. They bring us around to consider present, past and future times. As The Abbey marks 120 years it is not long before, in 2026, RTÉ marks the centenary of its opening.
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And so, it was natural for RTÉ to partner with its fellow cultural institution as it marks this significant date, because here's the thing: the Abbey and RTÉ have been in and out of each other’s stories for a long time.
To go back to beginnings. Willie Fay, one of the two Fay brothers who helped found the National Theatre and who played a large part in building the success of The Abbey, was very nearly appointed the first director of the new radio station - 2RN, then Radio Éireann, today RTÉ Radio.
onstage for Spreading The News
One can only wonder what direction Irish broadcasting might have taken had he been appointed!
A clipping of an article from The Evening Mail of May 4th, 1928, illustrates, how from early on, there was regular movement between the broadcaster - based in the GPO in O’Connell Street for nearly half of its existence - and the Abbey, just across the way, in nearby Abbey Street.
The article is about actress Sara Allgood, for whom it is generally agreed, Lady Gregory had a special regard. Its caption reads: 'A Visit by the star to Dublin’, and goes on:
‘Miss Sara Allgood, who has just returned from a successful tour in the United States, will be staying in Dublin for a short time… and in view of the Ibsen Centenary, contemplates producing an Ibsen play in the Abbey Theatre, on the 27th of May… Listeners will be pleased to learn that Miss Allgood will broadcast for a quarter of an hour from the Dublin Station at 8.45pm on May 11th. Listeners should not miss the opportunity of hearing the voice of this well-known artiste over the radio.
Many of our Dublin listeners have, of course, heard her in the Abbey Theatre, but a very large number are not aware that in addition to possessing a most musical speaking voice, which has captivated dramatic critics in other countries as well as ours, Miss Allgood sings Irish Folk Songs with a delightful native charm. Her programme will include some of these, as well as recitations in serious and in lighter mood...’
reading from the diaries of Lady Gregory
Already in its first decade, Radio Éireann had broadcast plays from The Abbey Theatre and its companion stage, The Peacock. This continues today with RTÉ hosting broadcast events at the Abbey and actors, writers, directors, and designers long-associated with RTÉ and the Abbey (including some of those contributing to Spreading The News) featuring in and contributing to each other’s broadcasting and theatre projects.
The Abbey and RTÉ, in the main, make their work for audiences in buildings designed by that evolving firm: Michael Scott, Michael Scott and Associates, Scott Tallon Walker, architects of iconic buildings, synonymous with twentieth century independent Ireland inventing, discovering and shaping itself to be a modern outward looking country – challenging us and communicating with us and the world. RTÉ and The Abbey are central to that story.
And finally, there is Marconi itself, the radio, in the kitchen of the Mundy sisters, the radio that released the sisters out of themselves so magnificently, so heartbreakingly in Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa, and premiered on the Abbey stage.
The title Spreading The News salutes co-founder of the Abbey, Lady Gregory’s play of the same name, performed on the opening night of the theatre in 1904. It celebrates and honours the notion that the Abbey Theatre was established as an experiment, a fundamental idea that continues to inform its work today.
It includes writing in order of its first appearance in the event by Lady Gregory, Sean O’Casey, Tom Murphy, Stacy Gregg, Brian Friel, Brandon Jacobs Jenkins, Conor McPherson, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, John Millington Synge, Enda Walsh, Anna Mullarkey, Mark O’Rowe, Barbara Bergin, Frank McGuinness, and Marina Carr.
The performers in order of their first appearance in the event are Caitríona McLaughlin (reading from the diaries of Lady Gregory, Co-Director and Artistic Director of the Abbey), Peter Coonan, Domhnall Herdman, Seán McGinley, Patrick Martins, Stephen Rea, Kate Gilmore, Bríd Ní Neachtain, Eileen Walsh, Kate Stanley Brennan, Barbara Bergin and Sexy Tadhg.
Spreading The News was recorded live on the Abbey Theatre stage on the 8th December, and has its first broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on the 27th of December 2024, the 120th Birthday of The Abbey. So, take your seat wherever you are and listen in. Bain taitneamh as.
Find out more about the Abbey Theatre and Spreading The News here.
