John MacKenna
speaker
119 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 6 Sep
John MacKenna’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
But he did surface in the theatre group I ran on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings.
Gary ploughed his own furrow and no amount of slagging from his classmates would make him anything but the boy he was.
He never tried to hide his gayness, never seemed to be cowed by the comments in the schoolyard.
never pulled back from being who and how he was.
And he wasn't shy about telling people what he thought of their opinions.
On his morning journeys to school, Gary must have wondered, worried, taken many deep breaths before facing the day.
And yet there was something in the way he walked.
head high, proud to be who he was and not for a moment needing to tone down his appearance, feelings or expressions.
Everything about Gary said, I am who I am, take me or leave me.
In the theatre group he met like-minded souls who were interested in acting and singing, in performing for each other and for audiences.
We produced street theatre shows on a piece of waste ground after mass on Sunday mornings, catching the homeward-bound attenders as they passed.
We staged plays at Christmas and summer, sometimes in the school hall, sometimes in the falling-down youth club that sheltered so many dreams and heartbreaks.
And it was there that Gary had what for me was his finest moment in that group –
We were presenting our show for three nights and on the afternoon of the first show we had a matinee for students.
At the best of times this could be a challenging audience and on that afternoon challenging was an understatement.
Every performance was heckled and commented on, laughed at and derided.
I feared for Gary, knowing that he'd be out there on his own wearing a poncho and jeans and singing without any accompaniment.
The sketches and other musical interludes passed and then it was time.
Gary stepped onto the stage to a cacophony of jeers and cheers and comments.
He took a moment to survey the crowd and then launched proudly and bravely into his version of Fernando, the ABBA song.
Showing 61–80 of 119 · page 4 of 6
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