An Irishman's Diary on Musical Marie's record breaking attempt

Musical Marie was a Manchester house-wife (real name Marie Ashton) who attempted to set a new world record for non-stop piano playing in the middle decade of the 20th century. She visited Ireland on several occasions in the 1950s while trying to break the existing record. I have just written an Irishman's Diary in the Irish Times about her trips to Ireland. Read it here.

This a short video from British Pathé from December 1954 showing Marie playing the piano in London.The things some people put themselves through!

Irish newspapers contained some interesting articles about Marie's time in Ireland. In Cork in 1959, the Irish Examiner said that 12,000 people saw her perform and that she was propped up by pillows and that her hands were bandaged. It added that a BBC crew from Belfast were on their way to Cork to record the final hours of the record-breaking attempt. I wonder if the footage is still available somewhere. The Evening Echo advertised that she would get "no sleep" and "no rest".

Did you know that during her time in Ireland that she offered to pay a fine that was imposed on some unemployed Irishmen? The Irish Times reported that in August 1953, she offered to pay the fines that  were imposed on men of the Dublin Unemployed Association. The offer was declined as the men said they would prefer to go to jail than pay a fine. 

You can also read about Marie's time in Limerick in this short article.

An Irishman's Diary on Arthur Darley

Arthur Darley was an Irish doctor who worked at the hospital set up by the Irish Red Cross in the French town of St-Lô after the Second World War. I have just written about him in the Irishman's Diary column in the Irish Times newspaper. Read it here. 

Photo of Dr Arthur Darley (right). Source 1945 Capuchin Annual.

One of Darley's colleagues at the hospital was the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). While Darley tended to the patients with tuberculosis, Beckett was charged with keeping account of the hospital's supplies. They became friends and when Darley died in 1948, Beckett wrote a poem about his friend, the man with the "gleaming eye". 

If you would like to know more about the hospital in St-Lô, there is an RTÉ radio documentary on its history available here.