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MJ Molloy - Playwright ~ Milltown |
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Michael Joseph Molloy (1917-1994) was an Irish playwright.
He was born and died in Miltown, County Galway. Molloy
originally intended to become a priest, but contracted
tuberculosis as a young man. He began writing plays during
his long hospital stays. His first play, Old Road, was
produced at the Abbey Theatre in 1943. His plays were
popular in the 1940s and 1950s, but only one of his later
plays, Petticoat Loose (1979) was staged at the Abbey.
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Nine of his plays premiered at the Abbey Theatre,
one in the Gaeity Theatre, and one at the John Player Theatre, all in Dublin.
Three plays were produced in London, three on Broadway, New York, and many were
broadcast, televised and published. He was working on The Princess of Hibernia,
a full length historical play at the time of his death. His main works include
the plays The Old Road (1943); The Visiting House (1946); The King of Friday's
Men (1948); The Wood of the Whispering (1953); The Paddy Pedlar (1953); The Will
and the Way (1955); Daughter from Over the Water ( 1958); A Right Rose Tree
(1958); The Wooing of Duvesa (1964); The Bride of Fontebranda (1975); Petticoat
Loose (1979); The Bachelor's Daughter (1985); and The Runaways (1987). |
His lecture, The Making of Folkplays, is
published in Literature and Folklore: Ireland and Newfoundland (Memorial
University of Newfoundland, 1977). He was a member of Aosdána, and he died in
1994.
The Quill in
Milltown GAA club logo
represents MJ Molloy.
He did his Leaving Certificate in St Jarlath’s College and then spent three
years training to do missionary work in China at St Columban’s College in Dalgan
Park. But his plans to enter the priesthood were dashed at the age of 20 when he
was struck down by tuberculosis. For almost 50 years, he spent a portion of each
week meticulously recording the folklore of the area in County Galway where he
was born and was living.
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He died at his home in Milltown in 1994.
He requested the following inscription from Isaiah to be put on his tombstone -
“Woe to those who call evil good and who call good evil”
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