This is from a scene from the short film “A Real Man” directed by Morgan Ryan. Some of the film was shot in Moortown as well as Coalisland in the last few days. The film features actors and crew from the Craic Theatre. The first picture is a scene with Caoimhin Gribben and the second is lighting/cameraman Darren Moriarty setting up for the shoot. Working on a film set is far from glamourous. It usually entails lots and lots of sitting around waiting for other people to finish their job before you can do yours. I’ve been an extra on a few films shot locally including “The Mighty Celt”, “Blind Flight” and a couple of episodes of “Give My Head Peace” Long days indeed. This is a very interesting film which is giving the actors at Craic an opportunity to see this kind of work from the inside. Apart from Caoimhin the film also features John Ryan, Tony Gervin, Clar Dorman, Jordan Trotter, Seanan Cummings and Aaron Donnelly.

The new sign being put up on Dungannon Library.  The library is currently closed while major refurbishments costing £498,000 are carried out. It  was the busiest of all the libraries in the north last year in terms of registered members.

The number of active members using Dungannon library’s services  doubled in the past two years from 5,800 in 2008/09 to a whopping 11,824 2010/11.

I am one of those people who will get angry when it’s announced that a library faces closure. I supported the campaign to save The Moy Library which was forced to close last year. The thing is though, I rarely use the library myself. The only time lately that I have been in Coalisland branch was to ask them to put up posters for the theatre. But they are a great resource and my father(an avid reader) is a very regular user.

These are the actors who appeared in Sam Millar’s new play “Brothers In Arms” at the Craic Theatre last night. (L-R) Tony Devlin, Helena Bereen, BJ Hogg and Jimmy Doran. They played to a full house last night and I know that actors can be a bit disingenuous when they say that they “love” playing at our theatre but in this case I do believe they mean it. I’ve known and worked with both Tony and Jimmy for many years and both have appeared many times at Craic.  Indeed Tony will be back with his own show “1981” on March 21st. I congratulated Helena on her appearance recently in the Oscar winning Terry George film “The Shore” and it was only today that I realised that BJ Hogg had also appeared in an Oscar nominated film “Dance Lexie Dance” a few years ago.

This is my friend and fellow Coalisland man Cole Doherty. We’ve known each other many many years. Cole is a set designer working mostly in the film and TV industry but occasionally for the theatre as well.   In the early years of the Craic Theatre Cole designed and constructed some magnificent sets, most memorably “The Sound of Music” (a mountain scene with a real fountain!) and “Little Shop of Horrors” He has gone on to make a great career and has worked on many award winning films including “Breakfast on Pluto” and “Hunger” which won the Caméra dOr award at Cannes Film festival as well as a BAFTA and IFTA awards. Cole is pictured here on the set of the HBO TV Show “Game of Thrones” which is filmed mostly in the North of Ireland.

I was at a reception on Saturday night hosted by the Lord Mayor of Dublin Andrew Montague in The Mansion House for the Tyrone Association Dublin. The Lord Mayor has a very strong Tyrone connection his father is from Carrickmore. My friend Ronan McSherry was being honoured for being CIPR Columnist of the Year for his work in the Tyrone Herald. Ronan also published his first book this year “Ronan’s Rants” which is a collection of his column. We had a great night with the Mayor giving us a rendition of the Van Morrison classic “Brown Eyed Girl” He also showed me his mayoral chain. The Lord Mayor of Dublin’s gold chain of office was presented by King William III ( yes King Billy himself!) to the City of Dublin in 1698. The chain is composed of decorative links including a portrait of Billy the Tudor rose, a harp, a trefoil shaped knot and the letter S (thought to stand for Steward.

At the reception I met two men I hadn’t seen nearly 35 years. Peter Farrell from Ballygawley who played  a couple of times along with his brother in our band “An Buachaillí” and Peter Smith (Peadar Mac Gabhann) Peadar now lectures in Irish at the University of Ulster and is a fine Sean Nós singer and is an expert in all aspects of Gaelic Culture. I remember him as a 15 year old competing in the Fleadhanna   in the mid 70’s. It was fantastic to catch up with these fine musicians.

This memorial stone is situated on the Coalisland to Dungannon road near the townland of Killybrackey. It is dedicated to a remarkable young man called Charlie Donnelly who was born in a house in Killybrackey on the 10th July 1914. Donnelly was a poet and left wing political activist and he died at the battle of Jarama on this day, 27th February 1937 fighting on the side of the Spanish Republic against Franco’s Fascists.

I first became aware of Charlie Donnelly about 25 years ago as a result of reading some articles and books about The Spanish Civil War. Also, being a Christy Moore fan I learnt (and occasionally  performed) Moore’s song about the Irish involvement in that struggle “Viva la Quinta Brigada” which mentioned Donnelly from Tyrone in the lyrics. Several years later I attended an excellent lecture delivered to Donaghmore Historical society by local historian and politician Jim Cavanagh. I remember coming away from that talk by Jim convinced that Charlie Donnelly’s life story would make a brilliant film. Joe O’Connor used Donnelly’s description of the Spanish Civil War as the title of his book “Even The Olives Are Bleeding” which Christy Moore echoed in his song. There was for a number of years a “Charlie Donnelly Weekend” sponsored  by Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council but sadly no longer. I always suspected that the more the local councillors came to know about Donnelly’s radical politics the less they wanted to be identified with him. The stone pictured was placed close to the birth place of Charlie Donnelly

I took a photo last week of the now derelict  Tynan Railway Station. That day I called into a shop in the village to find out directions to the Railway Station and drove past this high cross. I’ve always been aware of the high crosses at Donaghmore and Ardboe in Tyrone but not this one in the county Armagh village.

This is Rachel Corr from the same town as myself, Coalisland Co Tyrone but we are not related.  She is a brilliant piper with several All Ireland solo piping titles to her name and has played with some of the best pipe bands in the country including Cullybackey pipe band with whom she won an All Ireland grade 2 title. She currently plays with one of Ireland’s premiere pipe bands St Laurence O’Toole under the leadership of Terry Tully  with whom she won an All Ireland, European and World grade 1 title in 2010.  St Laurence O’Toole has had a connection with this part of Tyrone going back to when it was founded in 1910. Thomas Clarke a Dungannon man was it’s first president.

The band was formed at a meeting organised by the St. Laurence O’Toole Gaelic Athletic Association Club in the CBS school, Seville Place, Dublin. The main mover in forming the band was Frank Cahill. Frank was for many years an Alderman of Dublin Corporation and later a member of the new Irish Parliament (Dáil Éireann). Amongst those present at the meeting were Pádraig Pearse, Thomas Clarke, Sean McDermott, Arthur Griffith, Douglas Hyde (later to become the first President of Ireland), and the famous Irish playwright Seán O’Casey who became it’s first Secretary. O’Casey acted in many plays staged by the St. Laurence O’Toole Dramatic Society to raise money for the bands in it’s formative years.

One of the great things about being associated with The Craic Theatre Coalisland are actors, writers and performers of all sorts that I get to meet. This photo is of contemporary dancers Sheena Kelly and Signhild MeenWærsted. I’ve known Sheena for many years and have a family connection (two of my aunts are also her great aunts!) Sheena  trained at LIPA Performing Arts School in Liverpool and works across Ireland, UK and Europe as a dancer and teacher. Currently she is the artistic director of Sutemos Youth Dance Group, an integrated dance group based in Dungannon Co.Tyrone who perform, train and create new and innovative dance for young people.

Signhild Meen Wærsted – Born in Norway, Signhild trained at  LIPA  and works as a dance teacher and freelance dance artist  based in Oslo.

Sheena and Signhild were working at The Craic Theatre on an dance piece ‘Staircase’ (working title) which is a site specific dance improvisation film piece based on the idea of time. It is currently being developed to enter into several  dance film festivals.

This is writer and actor Mickey Devlin rehearsing his new one man show “Born To Run” which is a musical show about the legendary Bruce Springsteen. It traces the life, loves and music of one of the worlds biggest rock stars. This show will tour in March with an opening night in The Courtyard Theatre Newtownabbey on Saturday 10th of March.