An Irishwoman’s Diary Episode 11: An actress and a trend-setter - Genevieve Lyons

This is series 2 of An Irishwoman’s Diary from The Deirdre
O’Shaughnessy Podcast, search in your podcast app for An
Irishwoman’s Diary to find the six-episode Series 1.  


A precursor of Cabaret, the show about ‘a bad girl with a heart
of gold’, became the go-to show in Dublin for a brief period in
the 1950s, against all the prevailing morals of the time.


Asked later why it hadn’t been banned, as JP Donleavy’s The
Gingerman was, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid pointed out that
the character of Sally Bowles wasn’t Irish, and therefore didn’t
present a threat to the morality of Irish women.


The star of both shows was Genevieve Lyons, an actor, theatre
maker and writer who lived a very unconventional life. Her
performance as Sally Bowles caused a brief craze for berets in
fashion starved Dublin, and she wrote many books – one, about the
famine, owed its name to Princess Margaret.


In this episode Clodagh Finn recounts the story of a
self-described “lunatic traveller” who though often penniless
followed her creative dreams.


Clodagh Finn: The Irish woman who made ‘Cabaret’ a hit in Ireland
long before the Broadway musical


An Irishwoman's Diary series 1: Meet the Irish women who left
their mark on history


 


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