Maire O'Neill

Maire O'Neill

ca. 1913
Born Mary Allgood
(1885-01-12)12 January 1885
Dublin, Ireland
Died 2 November 1952(1952-11-02) (aged 67)
Basingstoke, England, UK
Other names Molly Allgood
Occupation Actress
Years active 1905–1952[1]
Spouse(s) G. H. Mair (m. 1911–26)
Arthur Sinclair (m. 1938–51)

Maire O'Neill (12 January 1885 – 2 November 1952) was an Irish actress of stage and film.

Life

Born Mary Allgood, one of eight children of upholsterer George and French polisher Margaret (née Harold) Allgood,[2] she was known as "Molly". Her father was sternly Protestant and against all music, dancing and entertainment,[3] and her mother a strict Catholic.[4] After her father's death she was placed in an orphanage.[5] She was apprenticed to a dressmaker. One of Allgood's brothers, Tom, became a Catholic priest.

Maud Gonne set up Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland) in 1900 to educate women about Irish history, language and the arts, and Allgood and her sister Sara joined the association's drama classes around 1903. Their acting teacher, Willie Fay, enrolled them in the National Theatre Society, later known as the Abbey Theatre.[6] Maire was part of the Abbey Theatre from 1906-1918 where she appeared in many productions.[7] In 1994 she was cast in a play by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy called Katie Roche [8] where she played the part of Margaret Drybone, there were 38 performances in this production.

In 1905 Molly met Irish playwright John Millington Synge and they fell in love, a relationship regarded as scandalous because it crossed the class barriers of the time. In September 1907 he had surgery for the removal of troublesome neck glands, but a later tumour was found to be inoperable. They became engaged before his death in March 1909. Synge wrote the plays The Playboy of the Western World and Deirdre of the Sorrows for Allgood.[1]

Under her professional name Maire O'Neill, she appeared in films from 1930-53, including Alfred Hitchcock's film version of Seán O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock (1930).[6] She made her American debut in New York in 1914 in the play General John Regan at the Hudson Theatre.[9]

Marriages

In June 1911 she married G. H. Mair, drama critic of the Manchester Guardian, and later Assistant Secretary of the British Department of Information, Assistant Director of the League of Nations Secretariat in Geneva, and head of the League of Nations office in London, with whom she had two children. He died suddenly on 3 January 1926. Six months later she married Arthur Sinclair, an Abbey actor. They had two children but divorced.[6]

Her life suffered a full share of tragedies; she was crushed by her brother Frank's death in World War I in 1915, her fiancée Synge died before they married, her beloved husband died after 15 years of marriage, and their son died in an air crash in 1942. Her sister Sara's husband and baby died of influenza during the Spanish flu. Sara died two years before her; they had become estranged.

Death

She died in Park Prewett Hospital, Basingstoke, England, on 2 November 1952, aged 67, where she was receiving treatment after being badly burned in a fire at her London home.[10]

In fiction

Joseph O'Connor's 2010 novel, Ghost Light, is loosely based on Allgood's relationship with Synge.[11][12]

Selected filmography

Playography

References

  1. 1 2 E.H. Mikhail, ed. (1988). The Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections. Barnes & Noble. p. 82. ISBN 0-389-20616-4.
  2. ↑ "National Archives: Census of Ireland 1911". Census.nationalarchives.ie. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  3. ↑ "Women's Museum of Ireland | Articles | Molly Allgood (Maire O'Neill)". Womensmuseumofireland.ie. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  4. ↑ Ruane, Medb (1991). Ten Dublin Women. pp. 15–20.
  5. ↑ "Molly Allgood profile". Ricorso.net. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 Boylan, Henry (1998). A Dictionary of Irish Biography, 3rd Edition. Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. p. 3. ISBN 0-7171-2945-4.
  7. ↑ "The Abbey Theatre Archive". Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  8. ↑ "The Teresa Deevy Archive". Retrieved 4 December 2016.
  9. ↑ Madison Wisconsin State Journal p.6 (17 February 1914) Madison, Wisconsin.
  10. ↑ Profile, Women's Museum of Ireland website; accessed 13 December 2015.
  11. ↑ "Ghost Light". Josephoconnorauthor.com. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
  12. ↑ "Brimming with sympathy and skill". The Irish Times. 5 May 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
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