Liam Ó Flaithearta (1896-1984) was an Irish novelist and short story writer and a major figure in the Irish literary renaissance. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Ireland. His brother Tom Maidhc O'Flaherty, also a writer, was also involved in radical politics and their father, Maidhc Ó Flaithearta, before them. A native Irish-speaker from the Gaeltacht, Ó Flaithearta wrote in both English and Irish.
Ó Flaithearta was born in the remote village of Gort na gCapall, on Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands, County Galway. His family, descendants of the Ó Flaithbertaigh family of Connemara, were not well off. The Irish language was widely spoken in the area, and in the Ó Flaithearta household both English and Irish were used.
Many of his works have the common theme of nature and Ireland. He was a distinguished short story writer, and some of his best work in that genre was in Irish. The collection Dúil, published towards the end of his life, contained Irish language versions of a number of stories published elsewhere in English. It is likely, for example, that the story The Pedlar's Revenge was first written in Irish under the title Díoltas. This collection, now widely admired, had a poor reception at the time, and this seems to have discouraged him from proceeding with an Irish language novel he had in hand.
O'Flaherty died on 7 September 1984, in Dublin, and many of his works were subsequently republished. He is remembered today as a powerful writer and a strong voice in Irish culture. Before his death he left the Communist Party and returned to the Roman Catholic faith.
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (1852-1932) was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies.
Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of stories taken from Irish mythology. Born into a class that identified closely with British rule, her conversion to cultural nationalism, as evidenced by her writings, was emblematic of many of the political struggles to occur in Ireland during her lifetime.
Lady Gregory is mainly remembered for her work behind the Irish Literary Revival. Her home at Coole Park, County Galway, served as an important meeting place for leading Revival figures, and her early work as a member of the board of the Abbey was at least as important for the theatre's development as her creative writings. Lady Gregory's motto was taken from Aristotle: To think like a wise man, but to express oneself like the common people.
A trip to Inisheer in the Aran Islands in 1893 re-awoke an interest in the Irish language and in the folklore of the area in which she lived. She organised Irish lessons at the school at Coole and began collecting tales from the area around her home, especially from the residents of Gort workhouse.
Edward Martyn was a neighbour of Lady Gregory's, and it was during a visit to his home, Tullira Castle, in 1896 that she first met W. B. Yeats. Discussions between the three of them over the following year or so led to the founding of the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899.
The Irish Literary Theatre project lasted until 1901, when it collapsed due to lack of funding. In 1904, Lady Gregory, Martyn, Yeats, John Millington Synge, Æ, Annie Horniman and William and Frank Fay came together to form the Irish National Theatre Society. The first performances staged by the society took place in a building called the Molesworth Hall. When the Hibernian Theatre of Varieties in Lower Abbey Street and an adjacent building in Marlborough Street became available, Horniman and William Fay agreed to their purchase and refitting to meet the needs of the society.
On 11 May 1904, the society formally accepted Horniman's offer of the use of the building. As Horniman was not normally resident in Ireland, the Royal Letters Patent required were paid for by her but granted in the name of Lady Gregory. One of her own plays, Spreading the News was performed on the opening night, 27 December 1904.
The Grandma is in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. The weather is cold, -1ºC of average and it's snowing without stopping.
She prefers to stay inside her cabin in The Orient Express reading something. Today, a biography about Peter O'Toole, one of the most important Irish actors who offered the best performances about the great William Shakespeare's characters.
Peter Seamus O'Toole (2 August 1932-14 December 2013) was a British-Irish stage and film actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic and with the English Stage Company before making his film debut in 1959.
He achieved international recognition playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was nominated for this award another seven times for Becket (1964), The Lion in Winter (1968), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), The Ruling Class (1972), The Stunt Man (1980), My Favorite Year (1982), and Venus (2006) – and holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations for acting without a win. In 2002, O'Toole was awarded the Academy Honorary Award for his career achievements.
O'Toole was born in 1932. Some sources give his birthplace as Connemara, County Galway, Ireland, while others cite St James University Hospital, Leeds, England. O'Toole claimed he was not certain of his birthplace or date, noting in his autobiography that, while he accepted 2 August as his birthdate, he had a birth certificate from each country, with the Irish one giving a June 1932 birth date O'Toole was evacuated from Leeds early in the Second World War and went to a Catholic school for seven or eight years, St Joseph's Secondary School at Joseph Street, Hunslet.
He first appeared on film in 1959 in a minor role in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England. O'Toole's major break came when he was chosen to play T. E. Lawrence in Sir David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), after Marlon Brando proved unavailable and Albert Finney turned down the role. His performance was ranked number one in Premiere magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. The role introduced him to US audiences and earned him the first of his eight nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor. T. E. Lawrence, portrayed by O'Toole, was selected in 2003 as the tenth-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.
O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, 1962
O'Toole fulfilled a lifetime ambition in 1970 when he performed on stage in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, alongside Donal McCann, at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. In 1980, O'Toole starred as Tiberius in the Penthouse-funded biopic, Caligula.
In 1980, he received critical acclaim for playing the director in the behind-the-scenes film The Stunt Man. He received mixed reviews as John Tanner in Man and Superman and Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, and won a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell (1989). O'Toole was nominated for another Oscar for My Favorite Year (1982), a light romantic comedy about the behind-the-scenes at a 1950s TV variety-comedy show, in which O'Toole plays an aging swashbuckling film star reminiscent of Errol Flynn. He also appeared in 1987's The Last Emperor.
On 10 July 2012, O'Toole released a statement announcing his retirement from acting. O'Toole died on14 December 2013 at Wellington Hospital, London, aged 81. His funeral was held at Golders Green Crematorium in London on 21 December 2013, where he was cremated in a wicker coffin.
O'Toole's remains are planned to be taken to Connemara, Ireland. His daughter Kate said: We're bringing him home. It's what he would have wanted. They are currently being kept at the residence of the President of Ireland, Áras an Uachtaráin, by the President Michael D. Higgins who is an old friend of the actor. His family plan to return to Ireland to fulfill his wishes and take them to the west of Ireland when they can.
On 18 May 2014, a new prize was launched in memory of Peter O'Toole at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School; this includes an annual award given to two young actors from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, including a professional contract at Bristol Old Vic Theatre. He has a memorial plaque in St Paul's, the Actors' Church in Covent Garden.
I woke up one morning to find I was famous.
I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard,
wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum.
