Old BBC clips revive cherished memories of multi-talented young Derry man

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Ronan Downey was just 32-years-old when he sadly passed away in December 2000 from the genetic condition Alpha-One Anti-Tripsin Antitrypsin Deficiency, a disease that causes inflammation of the lungs and liver.

Prior to his very untimely passing, Ronan had studied art and had worked as a designer and illustrator, amongst other places, at Holywell Trust on Bishop Street. A conference room in the building is dedicated to his memory.

However, the young Derry man’s premature demise shouldn’t in any way obscure the wonderful story of his other multiple artistic talents that were first showcased upon the performance platforms of Feis Dhoire Cholmcille.

Set in the 1950s, the ‘BBC 2 Playhouse’ production of ‘My Dear Palestrina’ was first screened in December 1980. The film relates the story of ‘Danny McErlane’ who inherits his grandfather’s piano.

Although the McErlane family knows nothing of classical music, his mother sends him to the local piano teacher in the hope it may provide him with a career as a dance band leader. However, the piano teacher, a Jewish woman of Polish origin called ‘Miss Schwarz’, discovers the child has a true gift for classical music and teaches him to appreciate the genre as well as how to perform it. ‘Danny’ forms a close bond with his teacher, but the lessons are abruptly halted when the story takes a dark turn because of prejudice encountered by ‘Miss Schwarz’.

The character of the piano teacher was portrayed in the film by the renowned English actress Eleanor Bron. One contemporary review of the film said that the actress gave a ‘luminous’ performance. And, a young Liam Neeson also features in one of his first film appearances in the role of a blacksmith.

‘My Dear Palestrina’ featured twice in news reports on BBC Northern Ireland’s ‘Scene Around Six’. The reports recently found housed on the digital archive service ‘BBC Rewind Northern Ireland’ have brought back a rare glimpse of that time before and during the filming of the piece.

And Ronan’s brother Garbhan Downey, said that the news reels from almost half-a-century ago resulted in bringing a smile to the face of his father Gerry – a fact made all the more special because of the fact that he has dementia.

“My father’s memory is gone now but when he saw the clips, he recognised the piano in our house, I think he recognised the music and of course he recognised Ronan. It was just a beautiful moment because ultimately, he wouldn’t remember much at all. But he knew that, and he knew it was an important phase of his life.

“The making of that play was actually a really happy time for everybody, and Ronan got to know the likes of Liam Neeson and Eleanor Bron. My father tells the story about Liam Neeson visiting our house before he was due to be in a play in the Guildhall. My father had to run him to the Guildhall, but his car was off the road, so he was driving my mother’s car which was a Fiat 126, the smallest car on the road. Liam Neeson is about six foot six, but he had to get him into the front of this tiny car, and he said his knees were touching the dashboard and he was thinking about opening the sunroof to let him put his head out,” Garbhan laughed”.

Ronan was 12 years old when he played the lead role in ‘My Dear Palestrina’, but already had developed a reputation as a real talent from an even more tender age. The young man was a renowned competitor at Derry Feis and won prizes for violin, piano, recorder and tin whistle as well as recitation in both English and the Gaelic language.

Garbhan Downey continued: “All of this came from Derry Feis, because Ronan from age six was winning medals. He really was a great talent for music and singing. In fact, something that wasn’t alluded to in the BBC interviews was that he was really a marvellous singer both in choirs and as a soloist. It was kind of hard on the rest of the family because he was winning everything and the rest of us were coming in fourth and being highly commended. But he did the practice, and he really did try very hard, but at the same time he had that extra quality. He was very strong in terms of singing and it meant that sometimes we were in awe of him, but he carried it very, very lightly.

“My parents were both avid feis goers. My mother was involved in feiseanna in Belfast again with the Irish language, in singing or drama. And my father then in later years became a judge and would have done a lot of the Irish language events in Derry as well as in speech and drama. He would have also gone further afield, all over the country. He often told how he had difficulty getting out the door down the country because he’d made ‘the wrong decision’ in a competition for the home crowd. But he was brave and was used to that sort of thing. He would also have taught a lot of people Irish for entry into the feis as well”.

The path to Ronan winning the part of ‘Danny McErlane’ in ‘My Dear Palestrina’ came about through the prompting of a teacher at Rosemount Primary School.

“It was Mickey Gillen, the headmaster identified Ronan for the role. He was involved in local drama as was my father. We would have been at all those shows growing up. Mickey identified Ronan’s musical talent and was keen to push him for ‘Shadows on our Skin’ certainly. I wouldn’t say he lobbied for him but pushed him to do the audition and he would have known people who could have helped him and that was the start of it.

“Again, it was because of the development of that feis talent at Rosemount Primary School, I would say from the entire months of February and March every year. The exclusive focus was that you learned your feis poem, your recorder piece and your violin piece and there was the choir’s as well. It was a very important part of school life.

“You know, it wasn’t until I went to university in Galway that I learned that not everybody could sing. I was sitting in a bar one night listening to two guys with guitars singing and they hadn’t a note between them, and I was wondering why no one else in the bar noticed this. I was along with another Derry man, and I said to him ‘are you hearing this’? He said ‘aye, they’re terrible’. They wouldn’t have got through the door in Derry, but because we were used to standards of singing that were so high, we didn’t know other places were different,” Garbhan said.

The BBC archive clips featuring Ronan’s own views about winning the role of ‘Danny McErlane’ reveal personality traits that would be enviable in an adult never mind a 12-year-old boy. Calmness, a very high level of articulacy and a general ability to remain effortlessly undaunted under questioning from a journalist exuded from him.

Asked about the audition process during the interview Ronan said: “It was very exciting. In fact, it was pretty hard to believe because there were quite a lot at the final audition in Belfast. It was unbelievable when he told me I had the main part.

“I had a small part in ‘Shadows on Our Skins’ and I thought that was a great idea. I love acting now”.

Describing his character Danny McErlane, Ronan added: “He’s a very ordinary boy at the time. It’s 1957 and really, he just has an ordinary life until he meets the piano teacher. Then his whole life changes completely”.

Asked about how he felt about the filming process, Ronan simply replied: “I think it’ll be great craic. I only had a small part in ‘Shadows on Our Skins’, but I enjoyed it. It was great. I’m going to enjoy it definitely”.

Garbhan said: “I noticed during the interview they were trying to tempt him into a couple of easy answers. But he didn’t bite at all. He was very mature and confident. But he was always like that from an early age. He was very like my mother to be honest – very confident and knew his own mind and was unafraid.

“He had done a bit of drama at school I think, but not a lot. It’s the performance of a poem on a feis stage gives you that confidence then to go on to another arena, whether it’s in front of a camera or on stage. If you have to make your presentation at work, you’re not scared of talking in front of people or you’re not scared that your memory will hold out. It really does teach you an awful lot of social skills that are very important.

“I’m personally glad that I did very minor things. I did some in Irish, which was great because it gave me the confidence to speak Irish and I did some poetry – all the usual stuff as a child. But it wasn’t for me. I’ll be honest and say that I was a bit nervous about performing when I was younger whereas Ronan absolutely had no fear. After he did drama, Ronan went onto public speaking at St Columb’s College. He was junior champion and Kevin McDermott, the journalist, was senior champion and became a university debater and was very skilled. Ronan was incredibly good, and they would have toured the north and won an awful lot of competitions”.

The links to Derry Feis from the Downey household also extended beyond the participation of the family themselves. In the BBC archive clips Ronan Downey is seen playing piano in his family home. That very instrument later found itself in the possession of a now famed Derry musician who also began learning the art of performance in the Guildhall and St Columb’s Hall during Easter week.

Garbhan Downey said: “The piano that Ronan is playing in the clip, originally came from a man called McHugh. The piano became a bit of a celebrity in its own right in that it wouldn’t fit in the front door, so we had to take out a window to get it in. So, when we were leaving that house in Crawford Square there was no way that it was going to fit in the house were going to then. My mother was great friends with the McDaid’s and that is the piano that Johnny McDaid learned to play on. I think Ronan who was around seven or eight years older than Johnny might have given him a few lessons as well. He was often in our house too”.