Carol Gleeson

speaker

66 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 25 Apr

Carol Gleeson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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The Pat Kenny Show · Are ya Dancin? Reliving Ireland’s Showband Era · 25 Apr 2026 podcast

And so...

And also after Jimmy, we spoke to Sean Riley and his lovely wife, Olive, who are also very involved in the industry and then to all the locals.

So there was loads of firsthand accounts we could draw from because it was very important to us that we portrayed the 1960s very authentically and very effectively in our play.

Yeah, so we felt it was a relatively untapped topic in Irish theatre in general.

And we had both grown up listening to our grandparents talk about stories of old.

You know, the show band stories have become part of local folklore in every town and village across Ireland.

But we had decided we wanted to write a play and we wanted it to involve music.

So we literally took out the Irish history books, flicked back through all the recent decades and last two centuries and

and stopped upon the show band era because it was so vibrant and so diverse and we just felt it offered us such amazing scope in terms of the social element the the cultural element the serious element and then also the fun element now so many ideas remain just gleams in the eye and never actually make it so to get it produced to actually get it out there

Yes, so that's where I suppose most writers face their greatest challenge.

But Helen and I, two years previous, had formed our own arts production company to focus on, I suppose, female-driven theatre.

So we had that in place.

So when we wrote our play, instead of going to look for somebody else to do it, we decided to take on the challenge ourselves.

It was a huge undertaking.

There were 30 performers on stage, including a live seven-piece show band.

And at the time we were, we still are, we're in the play, but at the time we also directed it.

So when I say it was a labour of love, it certainly was that.

We know, we know the next time our next show is going to be a two woman play.

Sorry, two women and one man.

We couldn't leave Paul behind.

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