Trials run for Limerick

Growing up in Granagh, Co Limerick, theatre director Joan Sheehy, was always fascinated with the story of Ellen Hanly, known as ’The Colleen Bawn’, from Granagh, who was immortalised in literature, drama, film and opera.

But what Sheehy couldn’t comprehend was why the tragic story of 15-year-old Hanly lent itself to so much comedy.

The best known story of ‘The Colleen Bawn’ was written as a comic melodrama by Boucicault. He wrote his play 20 years after the murder of Hanly in 1819. A beautiful peasant girl, she was secretly married to the aristocratic John Scanlan from Croom. But when his family put pressure on him to marry a woman of good financial standing, he felt trapped and had his young lover murdered by his loyal servant, Stephen Sullivan.