The old Cork Opera House holds special memories

Your article (Irish Examiner, December 5) prompts me to join the hundreds of Corkonians in remembering with nostalgia that night of December 12 1955, when our beloved Opera House burned.

As Tennessee Williams once wrote: “In memory, everything seems to happen to music.”

I heard the music that terrible night above the cracking of burning timber and the collapsing roofs and walls.

I was but 17 and had left my girlfriend home in Thomas Davis Street. We had been out dancing, celebrating her 18th birthday.

Her name was Noelle Callinan, who only three weeks before had brought down the curtain to standing ovations with her successful run of ‘The Belle Of New York’.

She was the last leading lady to strut those hallowed boards, following which an offer of entrance to the academy of Covent Garden came by way of a scout from London.

Noelle decided against London, preferring to remain amateur. She loved her beloved Cork Operatic Society, her great friends of stage in the city, who looked after her every need.

I have the eternal privilege of being her friend for 62 years and her husband for 53 of those.

We buried Noelle on November 20 in Crosshaven on the 60th anniversary to the day of when she put her size three foot on the stage of her beloved Opera House for the opening of ‘The Belle’.

Our beautiful songbird had flown.

Ted Emery

Fountainstown

Co. Cork