Macnas, noun: The frolic-like behaviour of a young calf let out to grass for the first time after being kept in all winter; joyous abandonment; dalliance, wantonness.
Rarely in the history of theatre can a group have been so aptly named. Macnas was founded 40 years ago this month (but seems to have the gift of eternal youth ) by Ollie Jennings, the director of the Arts Festival at the time; Pádraic Breathnach, a native speaker from Conamara who had worked with An Taidhbhearc and Druid and was the first director of the Galway Arts Centre; Tom Conroy, a graduate of NCAD, a lighting designer with Druid and visual arts organiser with the Arts Festival; and Pete Sammon, a street performer who had worked with Travellers groups and in Community Arts.
Part of their manifesto read: “We interpret the word ‘community’ in the broad popular sense. We are interested in the pastimes, the games and the rituals of our community in the West. We wish to create dynamic visual spectacles, using and exploring those popular forms of communal entertainment. Our spectacles will be created in the community in large outdoor family spaces. We hope to make fun on a grand scale and between ourselves.”
That described precisely what Macnas have been doing for 40 years. The words improvisation, spectacle, flexibility, creativity, original material, imagination, collaboration across disciplines, colour, music and movement, mayhem, magic, hypnotic drumming, and above all, fun apply to this group.
Their first gig involved 19 people manipulating a 70-foot dragon at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair. On St Stephen’s Day that year a group of traditionally dressed mummers played in Westside and St Francis’ Old Folks Home, and on New Year’s Eve 1986, Macnas had a parade around Bowling Green and St Nicholas’ Church involving children from Woodquay National School.
In 1987, they made a huge impact at the Connacht football final in Castlebar when they staged “The Big Game”. This involved making large papier-maché heads of the famous Galway three-in-a-row team of the 1960s and having them play a 10-minute match against a ‘Mayo’ team, which featured a ‘bishop’ throwing in the ball (a weather balloon which disappeared over the horizon ), an eyesight test for the referee, a slow-motion sequence, an old lady beating one of the Galway players with her handbag for hurting her poor son, one of the Mayo players. It was probably a bit sacrilegious for some of the GAA die-hards but most of the crowd of 36,000 found the mayhem novel, hilarious and memorable.
The following year they made a giant figure of Gulliver “from pipes, ropes and fabrics, hydrodare piping, a thick water pipe that was cut up and wired together using brush handles, ropes and string. The head was made from bamboo and chicken wire.” The giant made his debut on Grattan Road Beach and later, mysteriously appeared on Sandymount Beach in Dublin. A second Gulliver, an inflatable, was paraded around the streets of Galway and Dublin. These large-scale projects were made possible by grants from the Arts Council and the Gulbenkian Foundation.
Since then, Macnas have taken to the streets of Galway annually with a series of themed parades such as Tír Faoi Thoinn, The Táin, Carnival of Fools, Betty Big Shoes, The Big River etc. They have also produced indoor shows like Alice in Wonderland and The Rime of the Ancient Marineer. Each one of these has entertained and harnessed the collective energy of the enchanted audiences who always want to get involved by singing, dancing along, waving, cheering, turning it into joyful abandonment for the participants and the audience alike. In recent years, the parades have taken place at night so that the combination of weird and wonderful monsters, music, dancing, colour, hypnotic drumming now became a kind of joyful moving noisy light show with fireworks etc. They have toured all over the world with many of their productions.
The 1993 Noah’s Ark parade featured Thom Ginty, the Diceman playing God, perched on a large open hand, I asked him the morning after the parade what it was like playing God and looking down on maybe 70,000 cheering Galwegians and he said, “It was if a giant spell came down and spread itself all over Galway and made everybody happy for the day.”
Our photographs show that 70-foot dragon of 1986 and God/The Diceman helping to make the people of Galway happy for the day.
Happy Birthday Macnas. Long may you continue to inspire and entertain. Go maire sibh an chéad.
