Lofty ambition: When Fr O'Flynn made dramatic impact on Cork

IN 1924, the nuns of St Vincent’s Convent School in Peacock Lane asked Fr Christy O’Flynn to help their students stage a scene from The Merchant Of Venice.

The girls involved in the enterprise were Kathy Hickey and Eileen Curran. It was around this time that Fr O’Flynn hit on the idea of establishing classes for the study of Shakespeare’s plays.

This was the beginning of the Cork Shakespearean Company (CSC), later popularly known as The Loft.

At first, classes took place in the Presbytery of the North Chapel, then in a room over a shoemaker’s shop in Gerald Griffin Street. In 1926, the company rented premises over a sweet factory in John Redmond Street, which became the now-famous Loft.

Ironically, in the early days The Loft was never meant to be more than a temporary home for the CSC. The room in which rehearsals were held was quite small - 36ft long and 12ft wide. It was too hot in summer and too cold in winter.

Over the years, however, efforts to secure alternative accommodation failed and this was to be their HQ for the next 75 years. Classes and rehearsals were held in The Loft three nights a week and again on Sunday mornings. Gradually, a repertoire of plays was built up.

Fr O’Flynn made it his business to drum up support for The Loft from prominent Cork people - churchmen and politicians, lawyers and educators and the Irish Sisters of Charity, who ran St Vincent’s in Peacock Lane.

He knew the importance of having support from such people and institutions — this would ‘rub off’ on The Loft.

Fr O’Flynn was an impressive networker and image-maker. In a handbill, ‘Culture versus Vulgarity’, part of his publicity for one of his Opera House seasons, he gave as an added attraction: ‘Important men of the city will speak at the performances’.

He was a very successful organiser of engagements for his company. In the early days, The Loft presented Shakespeare plays in full or in extract at places such as the Municipal Hall, Kinsale; The Palace, Fermoy; Fr Matthew Hall, Cork; and The Ursuline Convent, Blackrock. They also gave open-air performances.

In summer, 1926, the Company gave a performance of The Merchant Of Venice at the Angelic Warfare Camp (run by the Dominican Fathers) in Knockadoon, near Youghal, under the heading ‘Great drama in nature’s setting: Shakespeare At Knockadoon’. Also that summer, the Company put on Richard III in a disused mill at Newcestown, Bandon, and staged three plays - Richard II, As You Like It and Twelfth Night - in the grounds of UCC before an audience of teachers on a summer course there.

On the back of this success, in 1927, Fr O’Flynn pulled off a master-stroke which made The Loft a legend in the city. He staged a week-long season of six Shakespearean plays — Richard II, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Merchant Of Venice, Othello and Richard III — at Cork Opera House in the first week of May. He sent Tom Vesey, who was in charge of the Company’s wardrobe, to London to buy five complete sets of costumes.

Fr O’Flynn’s boys and girls had, in a week, gone through a theatrical lifetime — Jack Curran’s Hamlet, Gus Healy’s Richard III, Leo Griffin’s Othello, Jim Stack’s Iago, Shylock and Claudius, Tom Veasy’s Polonius, not to mention various audiences, large and small. To cap it all, the Othello was broadcast live on radio. The priest had given them something they would remember for the rest of their lives.

From 1927-1932, Loft Shakespearean seasons were a feature of the annual Opera House programme. For the young actors, the work was time-consuming and demanding. Naturally, enthusiasm flagged on occasions.

Sadly, in the mid-’30s came the almost inevitable ‘split’ and many of the players left The Loft. Eileen Curran remained as a mainstay of a re-organised Company.

Fr O’Flynn carried on gallantly, holding classes in The Loft, producing plays at various venues and appearing in Sunday Concerts, until his final illness in 1961. When he died in January, 1962, founding members of The Loft - including Gus Healy - came together to make sure it would continue.

Over the years, in posters and handbills, in letters to local papers and in newspaper interviews, from stages and platforms all over Munster, Fr O’Flynn had proclaimed a philosophy. Shakespeare was the master dramatist and a student of his plays would get a deep insight into the nature of truth and beauty and an appreciation of the world.

His ideas about the importance of theatre and drama were light years ahead of their time. He saw that acting in a play by Shakespeare would make the actor articulate and give them self- confidence. Thus they could realise their true potential and be their own unique self. Not only that, their elocution would improve, they would move more gracefully and develop powers of observation and knowledge of people. Above all, they would become a more affectionate person, full of love for their fellow-man.

Many of those who passed through The Loft went on to pursue a career on stage, including Eddie and Geoffrey Golden, who went on to the Abbey, Kevin Flood and Joe Lynch, who went to RTÉ, and Michael Loughnan, who joined the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The 1970s were a remarkable time for the Company, as they performed a number of plays in the new Opera House. In 1972, they brought costumes over from Stratford-upon-Avon for a production of Richard III. In 1973, they performed King Lear, Macbeth in 1974, Coriolanus in 1975, and Hamlet in 1976.

Director of The Loft, Eileen Curran passed away in 1978, succeeded by Pearse Gunn, a member himself of almost 30 years. With the help of his brother Pat and Patrick Horgan, they continued for another 30 years to maintain and practice the teachings and philosophies of Fr O’Flynn. After Pearse’s passing in 2019, Pat Gunn and Pat Horgan remain close associates as supporters, advisors and occasionally performers with the group.

Today, on the approach of their 100th anniversary, although having changed location several times since leaving their original premises in 2001, with a core group of 10-15, as one of the country’s oldest continuously running theatrical companies, those teachings and philosophies remain at the company’s core.

The Loft is now based in the Rock Community Centre, on Blarney Street, with meetings every Thursday at 8pm to discuss productions of the past and rehearse productions of the future.

The torch passes on, but still burns brightly in the Shandon district.

Kieran O’Leary is Chairperson of the Cork Shakespearean Company.