26.03.2019
President Joins Tullow Parishioners to Honour ‘Son of the Parish’
President Michael D Higgins and Mrs Sabina Higgins were guests of honour at Tullow Parish Church on Saturday night (March 23). They were attending the fourth annual Beckett in Foxrock event, which this year featured a performance of Samuel Beckett’s radio play ‘All that Fall’.
The play features characters and sounds inspired by Foxrock and the surrounding areas in which Beckett grew up. Beckett attended Tullow Church with his mother May. 2019 is a special year as it is the 50th anniversary of Beckett being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the 30th anniversary of his death in 1989.
The President and Mrs Higgins, Archbishop Michael Jackson, Samuel Beckett’s niece, Caroline Murphy, and Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor were among a capacity audience that filled the church.
The audience was welcomed by the Rector, the Revd John Tanner, who thanked all who helped bring Beckett in Foxrock to the stage.
Dr Feargal Whelan of the Samuel Beckett Society gave a key note address before the play. He said that Beckett was born just down the road from the church on April 13 1906. “Despite Beckett leaving Dublin, his work has its origins in Foxrock. This is Beckett country… When he came back to Dublin he brought his mother to church here. He did not believe but religion never left his writing,” he said.
‘All that Fall’ was presented by Tullow Parish and Mouth on Fire Theatre Company. It was written as a radio play for the BBC and was first broadcast in January 1957. The play was set on a race day at the nearby Leopardstown Race Course.
As ‘All that Fall’ was a radio play, the audience experienced it rather than viewed it. Director Cathal Quinn explained that they had an agreement with the Becket Estate that the play could be put on only if the audience could not see the actors. They were directed to cover or close their eyes for the duration.
