A guiding artistic spirit - Evelyn O'Callaghan

Involvement in the arts is a memorable part of the formative years of any young child, and those of us happy enough with that experience are thankful to those teachers who led us on that road. However teaching has to be a vocation, and Evelyn O'Callaghan has that, along with artistic talent, in abundance. She taught in Athlone for almost 30 years and her work involved enhancing the self-confidence of children and leading them into the art of speech and drama, through the Irish language at many times. Indeed the background of the former Marist national school teacher is full of creativity of dance, music, pantomime and drama. Evelyn is a member of the Sharkey sawmills and undertaking business family from Ballaghdereen, Co. Roscommon, and as a child of the 1950s, she enjoyed her life with parents who were both creative and encouraging to their five children. The Sharkey family business is still active in its fourth generation, and is now run by Evelyn's nephew, Tom Sharkey. Evelyn was one of three Sharkey girls. Her sister Mary is teaching in Cork and her other sister, Dolores, also a teacher, sadly died last year. Her brother Bertie is a general practitioner, and her other brother, Tom is retired from the family business. "It was a quiet town in the 1950s, but it was a depressed decade, and we saw the men coming home from England and the USA to their families with their cardboard suitcases, and sadly they must have seemed like strangers to their families," she said. "But on fair days, everything was lovely, and carnivals in the town were very lively, with a marquee dance at night." At four years of age, Evelyn was sent to a unique school of dance, run by two ladies, Miss Carney and Mrs Loftus - both of whom were reputed to have been governesses to Russian émigrés in Europe following the revolution. "I learned to dance there, and did things like the waltz, and also ballet, and my first pantomime in Ballaghdereen, at age four, involved me dancing a few steps on my own, and my special dress was made by a dressmaker in the town, and we were blessed to have all these services in such a small town," she said. Evelyn went as a boarder to the Convent of Mercy School in Roscommon and developed a great love of ballet there, which led to her continuing that study into adulthood. n later years, when she came to live in Athlone, Evelyn studied ballet with Maura Sloane at the Jolly Mariner along with other adults. "We did mostly Gilbert and Sullivan operas in school in Roscommon, and I did some debating, as gaeilge, and it was a lovely way to learn about the arts," she said. "We did an opera every two years, like Pirates of Penzance, and I also began a great love of reading in those years. Jane Austen novels would have been a favourite of mine in those early years." Evelyn has been a voracious reader all of her life, and keeps up to date with her reading, and cinema watching. "I love some films, but I like them to be uplifting, and I don't like 'the dark', unless there is some redemption or light at the end of the tunnel," she said. Evelyn always wanted to be a teacher, and was encouraged by her mother to do so, and she saw primary teaching as giving her a way of making a difference in children's lives. It seems her vocation was not only to be teacher of the fundamentals, English, Irish and Maths, but to be a teacher of the arts, specifically drama. "I certainly do think teaching is a vocation, like I couldn't be a nurse or do other such occupations, but I wanted to be a teacher, and be involved in the personal development of children, and adults," she said. Evelyn studied at Carysfort College, Dublin. Being an educator, Evelyn realises the importance of continuing her own education, and following her Carysfort years, she went back to college, to do a BA in English and History and a Higher Diploma in Education in UCG. 'Nemo dat quod non habet,' meaning, 'You can't give what you haven't got,' was the message she heard constantly during her Carysfort years, and that she brought into her teaching years. She went on to teach for some years in schools in the west of Ireland, before coming to teach in the Marist National School in 1979. However, before her Athlone years, Evelyn met and married her husband, Eugene O'Callaghan, who was Regional Manager of the IDA in Athlone. The couple went on to have five children, Barry, Ciara, Paul, Deirdre and Emer. Sadly Eugene died at a young age, in 1998. "I'm very interested in spirituality and reading the books of John Moriarty and John O'Donoghue, and I love to go on special days to Clonmacnoise and to St Brigid's well in Liscannor," said Evelyn. "It's a Celtic thing I think, the love of pilgrimage, and I'm very grateful for the Catholic childhood which has stuck with me." As a teacher of the dramatic arts, Evelyn has shone well in Athlone, through her work with the boys of the Marist National School, and with children in Alliance Francaise in Athlone. She led many of her classes to the Cumann Scoil Dramaiochta, and one time in the 1980s, won an All-Ireland trophy for the production of a Marist school play, as gaeilge. Evelyn even wrote one 'as gaeilge' play of her own, 'Robin Hood and the Monks', and produced it with the Marist boys, and it won the All-Ireland in the Slogadh festival in Wexford. Evelyn worked successfully in puppetry with a team including Marlene Armstrong from the AIT, with children at Alliance Francise. "Working with children and puppets is very interesting, because children can have permission to express themselves wonderfully, through puppetry, and they can be somebody else for a short time," said Evelyn. A new part of her education came through went she joined Athlone Little Theatre, and took part as an actress in the challenging lead role of Big Maggie in the John B. Keane play. She built up a friendship with the now deceased Aileen Coughlan, who was a founder and long-time producer of the Little Theatre. "I loved the Little Theatre, and studied Speech and Drama with Aileen, and we had some lovely Saturday mornings at her house, with another friend, Therese Byrne, reading poetry," said Evelyn. Evelyn is constantly evolving as a lover of the arts, and while she retired from teaching in St Mary's NS two years ago, she still continues her encouragement of young people who love drama. "All the things I have done in drama have been part of a time for me, but then one moves on, but now I am at a place, where I have time to 'be'," she said. "These days I spend a lot time with my family, and I am interested in being there for my children, and my grandson Luke. I still love the arts very much, but life is about moving on and being still."