The life of an Athlone playwright

One of Athlone's best kept secret literary talents was revealed over seven years ago, when a local woman wrote and produced her first play, 'The Sleeveens'. Since then, Margaret McKenna-Mullen has successfully created three further popular plays, which have been staged throughout the country, and she is currently writing her latest project. The local playwright was born and reared in Assumption Road and was the daughter of Catherine and the late Bill McKenna. "My father was a great character who told lots of stories and was great craic, and my mother was much quieter and was always into praying, but she needed to be praying being married to my father!" said Margaret laughing. The close-knit family was made up of Margaret and her five brothers. Their father Bill was a member of the Defence Forces. "We used to sit out under the electricity poles at night in Assumption Road with army coats around us telling frightening stories and I remember Moran's tank up on the hill and we used to be told there was bodies in there, which frightened the life out of us," she laughed. Margaret went to Our Lady's Bower school and after that went working in Athlone Apparel where she was noted as being quite a character and being the life and soul of the factory. She made many friends there, who are part of her life today and she fondly remembers the late Dermot Kilduff, who worked in the factory, as creating great laughs and craic for his fellow co-workers. Margaret met Tommy Mullan in the Apparel when he came across the factory floor to fix her sewing machine. Seemingly the machine broke down a lot, and Margaret kept her future husband in work for a long time there. Tommy, who is a native of Derry, is the backbone of Margaret's production team, which has the interesting name, 'No Fixed Abode'. Margaret and Tommy, who live in Coosan, have two sons, Daniel and Stephen and two daughters, Gillian and Catriona. Bill McKenna was a big influence on his daughter, Margaret, and was a big fan of the old Dublin comedian, Noel Purcell, and his constant humour was what probably convinced Margaret to write a comic novel when she was in school. Bill died at the young age of 56 years. "One day a woman I went to school with reminded me of the novel I wrote back then and told me to take up writing again," said Margaret. "I had forgotten about it, but I remember one girl taking it home to read, and I never saw it again, and I could never re-gather my notes on it again. It was about a family living in France, but they were Irish." Margaret found out in recent years that her father's brother was into writing. He wrote a book on Tullamore and when she found this out she sent him a copy of 'The Sleeveens'. He told Margaret that many members of the McKenna family, who originated from Monaghan were poets, writers, journalists and scribes, and to continue on with writing. Margaret worked at home raising her family after leaving the Apparel and that advice from her uncle and her old schoolfriend encouraged her to start writing again. Her success was immediate and she had always taken a light hearted look on life, so one of her first efforts was a novel called, 'Look What the Bloody Stork Brought!'. She sent it to a publishing house that sent it back with an accompanying rejection slip with the comment - 'Keep writing because you have an authentic flair for dialogue'. "I didn't read much, but I was a fan of Margaret Attwood, which is an unusual choice I know, and I do love Maeve Binchy, but mostly I love plays, and I always liked watching characters. I've seen all the usual ones like 'Playboy of the Western World,'" said Margaret. "Then I wrote a modern play called 'The Sleeveens' which was rejected by the Druid Theatre in Galway." However, 'The Sleeveens' was a big hit when Margaret, with the great help of her husband Tommy, brought a team together to produce the play. Their ingenuity brought them to create the drama group, 'No Fixed Abode'. She has worked with Athlone's greatest acting and directing talents, such as Chrissie Killian and Amelia Keena - both of whom directed Margaret's plays. She had Athlone stage actress, Ann Hoey, play a lead role in one of her plays and she also worked with Paul Slevin on her productions. John McGlynn is another talented actor who worked with Margaret. Joe Macken was stage manager on the plays. Margaret's second play was 'Let's Twist Again', and then she wrote 'Promises, Promises', and then 'No Harm Done'. She is working on a new comic play, with the working title, 'Money Talks'. Margaret has even acted in some of her own productions, including replacing Ann Hoey in 'The Sleeveens', when the role had to be filled. "Ray Collins, who is a local actor, was a great inspiration to me then and told me that when I get up on stage not to see an audience or anybody, and that I would be in the world of the play," she said. "I really admire Ray because he is so talented and he's super and doesn't get the recognition that he deserves." Margaret gets packed houses for her plays whether it is in the Dean Crowe and Passionfruit theatres in Athlone, or the Hawks Well, Sligo, the Town Hall Theatre in Galway, or the Millennium Forum in Derry. "The Passionfruit has been a particularly great place to put on a play, it has a lovely setting there," said Margaret. She is also critically acclaimed throughout the country for her satirical plays and www.dublinevents.com said of Margaret's second play, 'Let's Twist Again' - 'it will certainly give you a belly full of laughs.' "I just sit down and write and have a computer and typewriter but I write by hand and stuff comes to me quickly and I have to write it quickly," said Margaret. "If I was on a train or whatever or if I hear a conversation that is 'off the wall', I'd write it quickly into a notebook. Recently I was on a bus, and I heard a fellow talk about coming home to Galway, and he hadn't seen his people in ten years. Then he said that he had been all over the world, but in his head." Margaret writes at a desk at home an odd time, but mostly she writes in her conservatory when the sun is shining and sometimes she scribbles a few lines when she is in bed. "No matter what goes on in life, I can go back to my fictional world, and no matter what, my play will go on, because I've a great team of people who I've been able to call upon," she said. "But we use everything in the productions, and Tommy has great ideas, and took the curtains off my wall for a play, and also used my writer's desk." Despite the high ticket sales of her plays, Margaret says she makes little money, because of the costs of overheads. If there is money left over, Margaret pays for her cast to stay in a hotel in whatever town they are visiting. Margaret intends in the future to spend more time writing plays, while continuing to have her drama group, 'No Fixed Abode' produce the plays.