Sam(uel) Thompson (21 May 1916 – 15 February 1965) was a Northern Irish playwright best known for his controversial plays Over the Bridge , which exposes sectarianism , and Cemented with Love , which focuses on political corruption. His works fall into the social realist genre but are distinct in their dramatisation of Northern Irish issues; they were ground-breaking in documenting sectarian violence before the eruption of the Troubles .
23-628: Joseph Tomelty (5 March 1911 – 7 June 1995) was an Irish actor, playwright, novelist, short-story writer and theatre manager. He worked in film, television, radio and on the stage, starring in Sam Thompson 's 1960 play Over the Bridge . Born in Portaferry in 1911, he was the son of James Tomelty, a skilled fiddler who was nicknamed "Rollicking"; and the brother of Peter Tomelty, a tenor and recording artist. Tomelty's exposure to music at
46-551: A blue plaque was unveiled at Montrose Street South, Ballymacarrett, Belfast, the location of the house playwright Sam Thompson was born in, on the 50th anniversary of the first performance of his controversial play Over The Bridge . On 10 October 2013 the Connswater Community Greenway announced that the new landmark bridge linking Victoria Park to the old shipyards in East Belfast was to be named
69-609: A Dublin-based media company, since 2000, and is the company's only print title outside of the Republic of Ireland. It was first published as the Belfast Evening Telegraph on 1 September 1870 by brothers William and George Baird. Its first edition cost half a penny and ran to four pages covering the Franco-Prussian War and local news. The evening edition of the newspaper was originally called
92-631: A painter in the Belfast shipyards , starting aged 14 at Harland and Wolff and working for Belfast Corporation after the Second World War , and much of his writing draws on these experiences. Thompson was a lifelong socialist and a committed trades unionist ; he became a shop steward at the Belfast Corporation. His opposition to sectarian discrimination was to cost him his job. He stood unsuccessfully for parliament as
115-642: A production in April 1959 when the theatre's board of directors headed by J. Ritchie McKee refused to produce the play, criticising it in the Belfast Telegraph as "full of grossly vicious phrases and situations which would undoubtedly offend and affront every section of the public" and stating "It is the policy of the directors of the Ulster Group Theatre to keep political and religious controversies off our stage." Ellis and many actors of
138-506: A pub. His first piece, the radio documentary feature Brush in Hand about shipyard apprenticeship, was broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland in 1956. Several radio plays and documentary features for the BBC were to follow. Tommy Baxter, Shopsteward (1957) focuses on discrimination against a trades union official by the management, while The General Foreman (1958) takes on the difficult role of
161-465: A text which illuminates the condition of the culture that frames it" and adds "the story of its reception provides incontrovertible evidence of the unease within the Unionist establishment during this period;" while Lance Pettitt calls the play "a powerful indictment of the failure of labour politics against religious fundamentalism". Thompson's second stage play, The Evangelist (1963) is based on
184-534: A young age influenced his work as a playwright, with several of his stage works being named after songs, including The Singing Bird (1948), Down the Heather Glen (1953) and The Drunken Sailor (1954). Tomelty was a co-founder, in 1940,of the Group Theatre in Belfast, and served as its general manager until 1951. He married Lena Milligan in 1942. They had two daughters together: Frances Tomelty
207-991: Is a daily newspaper published in Belfast , Northern Ireland , by Independent News & Media , which also publishes the Irish Independent , the Sunday Independent and various other newspapers and magazines in Ireland. Its editor is Eoin Brannigan. Reflecting its unionist tradition, the paper has historically been "favoured by the Protestant population", while also being read within Catholic nationalist communities in Northern Ireland. It has been owned by Independent News and Media ,
230-564: Is an actress and the first wife of singer and musician Sting ; while Roma Tomelty (d. 22 April 2020) was also an actress. Tomelty's family-based radio sitcom The McCooeys was first broadcast on the BBC Home Service in Northern Ireland on 14 May 1949, becoming the region's most listened-to programme over the next six years. Centre Stage Theatre Company, co-founded by his daughter Roma and her husband Colin Carnegie, revived four of
253-582: The 1964 general election year, it was repeatedly postponed due to protests from the BBC in Belfast. After a campaign led by the producer from BBC London, Cemented with Love finally appeared in May 1965 as part of The Wednesday Play series, a few months after Thompson's death. It was adapted as a stage play in 1966 by Tomás MacAnna . Thompson had completed a draft of a further stage play, The Masquerade , set in London, before his death. On 26 January 2010,
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#1732798634554276-828: The Belfast Telegraph was bought by the Dublin-based Independent News & Media group in March 2000. The Belfast Telegraph was entirely broadsheet until 19 February 2005, when the Saturday morning edition was introduced and all Saturday editions were converted to compact. The weekday morning compact edition was launched on 22 March 2005. In 2015, the Telegraph launched the magazine supplement Family Life . The paper now publishes two editions daily, Belfast Telegraph final edition and
299-601: The Labour party candidate for the rural South Down constituency in 1964. He married May Thompson in 1947. He suffered a heart attack in June 1961, dying suddenly from a second heart attack in 1965, and is buried in Belfast City Cemetery . Thompson was encouraged to begin writing for radio in 1955, aged 39, by novelist and radio producer Sam Hanna Bell , who overheard him telling stories of shipyard life in
322-627: The North West Telegraph which is distributed in Derry . Its editor, since April 2020, is Eoin Brannigan. The Belfast Telegraph was named as Best UK Regional Newspaper of the Year 2012 by the Society of Editors Regional Press Awards. Reflecting a decline in newspaper sales generally, circulation of the Belfast Telegraph has declined as of the early 21st century, from 109,571 for
345-500: The religious revival in Ulster of 1859 and focuses on the exploitation of evangelism ; it proved neither as controversial nor as successful as Over the Bridge . The television play Cemented with Love saw a return to controversy: a black comedy which deals with corrupt electoral practices including bribery, gerrymandering and personation , the play lambasts both Unionist and Nationalist parties. Intended for broadcast during
368-534: The "Sixth Late", and "Sixth Late Tele" was a familiar cry made by vendors in Belfast city centre in the past. Local editions were published for distribution to Enniskillen , Dundalk , Newry , and Derry . Its competitors are The News Letter and The Irish News , and local editions of London-based red tops also compete in this market, in some cases selling at a cheaper price than the "Tele". Sometimes described as having "unionist leanings", and operating an editorial policy supportive of "moderate unionism",
391-559: The Sam Thompson Bridge. The name was chosen from a shortlist of five by popular vote with Sam Thompson being the preferred choice of 44% of those that took part. This £500,000 bridge is part of the plans from the local Connswater Community Greenway project, who are building a £35 million greenway in east Belfast. The campaign had attracted the support of a number of high-profile people, including Cllr Claire Hanna ( SDLP ) Belfast Telegraph The Belfast Telegraph
414-539: The Ulster Group Theatre resigned to form their own company, and Thompson successfully sued the Board for breach of contract. Over the Bridge finally opened at the Empire Theatre in Belfast on 26 January 1960, directed by Ellis and starring J. G. Devlin , Joseph Tomelty and Harry Towb ; Thompson played one of the minor roles. It was highly successful, with an estimated total audience of 42,000 people during
437-534: The episodes in a stage version, directed by Michael Quinn and performed in the refurbished Grand Opera House Studio Theatre in February 2022. Sam Thompson (playwright) Born and educated in a working-class Protestant area in Ballymacarrett , Belfast , Thompson was the seventh of eight children of a lamp-lighter and part-time sexton of St Clement's Church. He spent most of his working life as
460-524: The foreman mediating between management and the workforce. The autobiographical piece The Long Back Street (1959) describes poverty and sectarian violence during Thompson's early life in Ballymacarrett. He became a full-time playwright and actor in 1959. His later works for radio include the documentary A Bed for the Night in which he interviews inmates of a Belfast hostel for the homeless, and
483-507: The serial The Fairmans: Life in a Belfast Working Family (1960–61). The stage play Over the Bridge , Thompson's best-known work, charts the tragic course of a sectarian dispute in the shipyard. Thompson offered the play to James Ellis , then director of the Ulster Group Theatre , early in 1958, reportedly saying "I got a play you wouldn't touch with a bargepole!" Ellis accepted it, and rehearsals had already started for
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#1732798634554506-613: The six-week run, far greater than had attended any play in the city previously. On tour, Over the Bridge enjoyed considerable success in Dublin and Glasgow , and also played in Edinburgh , Brighton and the London West End. The play was later adapted for television by Granada with additional material by Hugh Leonard and for radio by the BBC in Belfast. Ten years after its production, Sam Hanna Bell wrote that "at last
529-508: The unclean spirit of sectarianism had been dragged before the floodlights and examined with passion, pity and corrosive laughter". Later critics also consider the play to have been ground-breaking; James McAleavey considers Over the Bridge and the controversy surrounding its staging to be "a landmark in the cultural history of Northern Ireland and ... prophetic of the Troubles to follow;" Michael Parker describes it as "a potent example of
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