Tipperary's Fr Mathew Players celebrate 'bringing music and drama to life' for 80 years

New Inn's Fr Mathew Players is marking 80 years of entertaining the public by doing what its troupe of actors and back stage team do and love best – staging a play.

A special performance of one of Irish theatre’s most famous theatrical works – Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock - is one of the events the drama group is hosting this year to celebrate the landmark anniversary.

The performance takes place at Brú Ború in Cashel on Saturday, May 17 with tickets now on sale from the cultural centre.

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A night of music and drama at New Inn Community Centre this autumn is also being planned.

On the stage of Brú Ború next Saturday, the Players will be reprising their 2025 annual production of the final drama in O’Casey’s Dublin trilogy set during the Irish Civil War.

The production, directed by Karl McHugh, was originally performed before packed audiences at New Inn Community Centre over five nights in February.

The group is delighted to be invited by Brú Ború to honour the 80th anniversary of its foundation in this way.

Fr Mathew Players Chairman Eddie Golden, who plays Needle Nugent in Juno, says the upcoming Brú Ború performance is another opportunity to showcase the Players’ work.

Director Karl McHugh, who also produced the group’s 2024 drama – JM Synge’s Playboy of the Western World – says Fr Mathew Players fortunately has a large pool of actors to cast in its annual productions.

“We are spoiled with the talent. We have tried for the past two years to do big productions with a big cast and use as many of the people we have as we can.”

Eddie Golden, who is a Garda Superintendent when not treading the boards, reports Fr Mathew Players’ has experienced an influx of new recruits. These new actors along with the group’s well established members are following “a long tradition of providing the highest quality of amateur dramatic productions”, he says.

The Players’ production of Juno and The Paycock boasts a cast of 19 with a large back stage crew.

Eddie points out the Players availed of the help of other local volunteers each night of Juno and the Paycock’s recent run in New Inn.

“We get a large input from the community to put on a production. For the five nights of the show, we had 27 volunteers from car parking attendants to people organising the tea and coffee and hall. You are talking about 50 people involved across the whole production.”

Local businesses like Purcell’s Shop, Ollies and Barron’s pubs and The Friary Pharmacy team all provide support to the Players in staging the annual play.

The cast of Fr Mathew Players’ 2018 production of Them written by Tom Coffey.

Reaching the 80th anniversary landmark is a significant achievement for an amateur drama group in a rural community like New Inn.

The only periods the club was inactive over the past eight decades was from 1985 to 1995 and during the recent Covid pandemic when all theatre productions across the country were stopped to prevent the spread of the virus. The Players’ plan to stage a special performance of their 2020 play - the Cripple of Inishmaan - on Inishmaan island was scuppered by the first Covid lockdown.

But the group has bounced back even stronger since the lifting of Covid restrictions in 2022.

“It’s testament to those who came before us that the group has lasted the test of time,” notes Eddie, whose mother, uncles and aunts were all involved in the group.

“I would like to acknowledge all our former members who are still full of life and those who sadly have passed to their eternal reward but who ultimately kept our group’s core ethos of “Bringing Music and Drama to Life” alive for all those years.”

Two of Fr Mathew Players longest serving thespians are Paddy O’Connor and current committee Vice-Chairperson Catherine McGrath, who joined up in the late 1970s. They have performed in many of the group’s stage productions in the intervening years and are members of the Juno and the Paycock cast.

They recall the Players were founded in the mid-1940s and named after Fr Theobold Mathew, founder of the pioneer movement in Ireland.

Paddy’s grandfather, uncle and aunt were involved in the Players’ early days. He says the group was set up to stage dramas in New Inn during Lent when there weren’t any other social outlets in the village.

The first play the Players staged was Thomas King Moylan’s Paid in His Own Coin in March 1945.

Catherine also had several family members involved in the group in its early decades. Her grandfather Joseph Moloney is one of the founding members.

She recalls the Players originally performed in the former Downey’s Hall opposite the dispensary in New Inn.

In the 1950s, the Players moved to New Inn Tennis Club Hall, now also known as New Inn Community Centre.

While some productions in the intervening years were staged at the Convent Hall, the Community Centre remains the group’s home to this day. It was extensively refurbished a few years ago and PRO Isobel Moore says it’s a lovely space for the Players to meet, rehearse and stage their productions.

Isobel joined the drama group in 1995 at the age of 12 when she appeared on stage as one of the von Trappe children in the Sound of Music and has performed in many of the group’s productions over the years as well as working on costumes, make-up and on the committee. She plays Masie Madigan in Juno.

Supporting Isobel, Eddie and Catherine on the Players’ committee are Secretary Lisa Hally, who plays Mrs Trancred in Juno, Treasurer Eileen Hally, who is in charge of show tickets and box office bookings, Assistant Treasurer Esther Boland, who has appeared in many past productions and is a member since 1981 and Assistant Secretary Gwyneth Kelly, one of the Players’ new recruits.

Isobel says the group’s active season is generally between September and March with preparation for the annual play beginning in November for staging in early spring.

The Players have staged a vast range of dramas over the years, many of them the works of Ireland’s greatest playwrights. John B. Keane’s The Field (2016), Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (2017) and Dion Boucicault’s The Shaughraun (2014) are just a few examples.

The drama group has also championed the work of local and lesser known national playwrights. Its 2010 annual production was, No Home Tomorrow, written in the early 1960s by Patrick J. Walsh from nearby Cahir .

Mr Walsh attended one of the performances and was very impressed with the cast’s interpretation of his work.

Jimmy Farrell, another of the Players' longest serving members, regards Tom Coffey's play Them as one of o the most memorable and moving dramas the group has staged. Them made such an impression the Players staged it twice, first in 2008 and again in 2018.

“It’s a very emotional and great play about a disabled boy who was being bullied. When he is asked whose fault it is, he says ‘Them’, explains Jimmy, who received the Fr Mathew Players’ Outstanding Contribution Award last year.

Jimmy Farrell receiving the Fr Mathew Players’ 2024 Outstanding Contribution Award from Chairman Eddie Golden.

The Players also stage musical dramas ranging from Les Misérables (2013) and Give My Regards to Broadway (2015) to the Irish premiere of English writer Bill Cronshaw’s Free and Easy in 2010.

The latter show, set in 1960s Manchester, is one of the Players’ favourites because of the many well known songs from that era it features.

“Free and Easy showcased a lot of different acting styles and those with singing talent, We had a live band performing on stage in character,” recalls Isobel.

“We staged 14 sold out performances of the show. It was really fun and the audiences were dancing in the aisles.”

The cast of Fr Mathew Players 2010 production of Free and Easy

Another highlight was winning the All-Ireland One Act Drama Festival in December 2015 for a production of Geraldine Aron’s play – A Galway Girl. The Players beat off competition from 36 drama groups from all over the country to win the prestigious title.

The play was produced and directed by Tom Fitzgerald, the group’s producer for 17 years from 2006 to 2023.

Breda O’Connor and Alan O’Donnell played the main roles with Breda winning the Best Actor of the Festival award.

The Players also in the past staged shows to raise funds for worthy causes like the Niall Mellon Trust and Lourdes Pilgrimage Fund and for community cultural events like the New Inn Festival and dinner theatre in Cahir.

Getting involved in Fr Mathew Players is undoubtedly a great way to give back to the community, socialise and forge friendships around a shared passion for drama.

Paddy O’Connor, who received the Players’ Outstanding Contribution award this year, sums up why he has enjoyed being a member of the drama group for nearly 50 years

“It’s the challenge of telling a story, and I love telling a story. I love the friendships and the fact you are doing something that pushes out the boat a bit.”

Tickets for Fr Mathew Players' 80th anniversary performance of Juno and the Paycock cost €20 and can be purchased by contacting Brú Ború at (062) 61122 or online via the website: www.bruboru.ie

Paddy O’Connor (centre fourth from left) receives the 2025 Outstanding Contribution Award from Fr Mathew Players Chairman Eddie Golden (fourth from right) and other Players committee members. includig from far left: Isobel Lynch, Eileen Hally, Catherine McGrath and on the right: Lisa Hally, Gwyneth Kelly and Esther Boland

This feature on the 80th anniversary of New Inn's Fr Mathew Players is published in the latest edition of The Nationalist now on sale in local shops.