Beauparc native actor 'cuts the mustard'

It is the mark of a truly remarkable actor when he or she can span the generations, and be recognised by many different eras of audiences, and in many different forms of theatre, from stage to cinema, with television in between. Pat Laffan is one such performer. To some, he is one of the legion of great Irish players who graced the stage of the Abbey Theatre and other venues around the city, country and world. To movie fans, he is Georgie Burgess in Roddy Doyle’s 'The Snapper’. And to fans of Dermot Morgan’s 'Fr Ted’, he is the rather amorous milkman and ladies’ man, Pat Mustard. Last week, the actor, a native of Beauparc, visited his home county and Navan town on a nostalgic trip with a former schoolmate, Fergus Fleming from Kilmessan. The visit included a trip to see the new Solstice Arts Centre and Theatre in Navan, where he was met by Meath County Council leas cathaoirleach, Cllr Shane Cassells, and Cllr Brian Fitzgerald, as well as the centre’s manager, Belinda Quirke. The visit to Railway Street had extra meaning for Laffan as his father was a member of Meath County Council, and his mother taught in the old VEC school there, now headquarters of the council’s economic development unit, next door to the arts centre. Laffan grew up at Dollardstown, Beauparc, and recalls Saturday evenings in Navan with his parents. “When you’d come into town with them, it would take hours to get around - they knew everybody in town, and almost everyone on the street would stop for a chat,” he recalls. The actor’s father, also Patrick Laffan, was elected to Meath County Council as a member of the Farmer’s Party in 1925. It was an extraordinary period in Irish history, just after civil war, and the council was made up of many different strands of society, from the remnants of the landed Protestant gentry to those who had been involved in both sides in the war. A native of Tipperary, Laffan senior had bought a farm at Dollardstown when it was being divided by the Land Commission. He was a member of the Farmers Party, which had been founded in 1922 as the weakened state of agriculture became a greater issue than the civil war politics. He had a link back to the founding of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884 - his first wife’s first husband was JK Bracken, one of the founders with Michael Cusack of the GAA in Hayes Hotel in Thurles. His second wife, Catherine Moran, was a native of Trim, who taught from 1920 to 1932 in the Vocational School in Navan, and lived in the centre of town at the time. “Navan was a pleasant town to grow up in and to go shopping in - there was only about 4,000 people in it, and everyone knew everyone else,“ says Laffan. He went to school for a year in the old St Patrick’s Classical School, before moving on to St Finian’s College in Mullingar. “We were starved and beaten in Mullingar, and I didn’t think the education there exceptional,” he says. “But against that, there were a lot of laughs - there were a lot of Navan lads there, and some of the priests were all right. But it wasn’t Eton or Castleknock, and the food was terrible.” While about half of his Leaving Certificate class joined the priesthood afterwards, Pat Laffan knew that wasn’t for him. Engineering was the shortest course that could be done in college at the time, for a professional qualification, so he went on to study engineering in UCD as he had honours math. At UCD, he joined the drama society. “I missed a year of college over doing too many plays,” he laughs. Also during his college days, he worked as an engineer with the county engineer in Navan. “There’s a gate outside the morgue at St Joseph’s Hospital in Trim that I designed - that’s my legacy there!” He graduated from UCD on a Wednesday, and by the following Saturday night was on stage in the Abbey Theatre, covering for an actor who was away. He was on stage that Saturday and Monday nights, and stayed for 12 years. Ernest Blythe was running the Abbey at the time, and Mrs Laffan, not wanting her son to continue in acting, wrote to Mr Blythe asking him to dispense of the services of young Pat. “Mr Blythe came to me, and told me my mother wanted him to get rid of me. I said I didn’t want to leave, so he upped my pay to 30 shillings a week and made me full time in a permanent and pensionable job there, as the Abbey was at the time.” Laffan’s first role was in an 'The Evidence I Shall Give’ an Irish play about child abuse in a convent by Richard Johnson, in 1961, while his first full run was in Edna O’Brien’s 'Girl with Green Eyes’ in 1962. The Abbey was a company of 12 to 14 people with Vincent Dowling, Marie Keane, TP McKenna, Philip O’Flynn and Ray McNally among the company. Many of these actors were well-known for their roles in 'The Kennedys of Castleross’, a radio soap opera which ran for almost twenty years from the mid fifties. “It was great experience, you learned everything there was to know about the job, timing and such,” he says. He had left the Abbey for a period, and went to England for three years. “I didn’t like it, and didn’t do so well there, and my mother was getting on, so I was able to come back to the Abbey.” It was an exciting time, with the new building, and an influx of new performers such as Donal McCann, and with Tomas MacAnna taking over as director, it was very lively, he recalls. Laffan performed in many plays, both old and new, from the Abbey repertoire. As well as in the old Queen’s Theatre, and the new Abbey, the company played in many parts of the world including Britain, Europe, the US and Australia. For most of the 1970s, Pat Laffan was director of the Peacock Theatre and directed in the Gate Theatre from 1979 to 1982. He still reads plays for the Abbey, and is involved in the Gaiety School of Acting and its plans to develop Smock Alley in Temple Bar, one of the earliest venues in European theatre history. The Gaiety School is currently managing a 110-seat black box space on the site, and is working alongside Temple Bar Cultural Trust and the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism to reinstate Smock Alley Theatre to its former glory. It is proposed that this development will include a 220-seat theatre, a 110-seat studio space and seven state of the art rehearsal/ training studios. Laffan has just returned from filming “a little part in a big picture.” He has a role in Steven Spielberg’s 'War Horse’, an adaptation of the British stage hit, due to be released in the US in August 2011. The film centres on a young Devon farmhand who braves the trenches of World War I in an effort to fine his beloved colt, Joey, which was sent on war service. “It’s not a big part, and I was asked to do it,” he says. “It’s nice to be asked.” The filmmakers had seen him in a small part in 'The Queen’, the film which brought Helen Mirren an Academy Award. His role in 'The Snapper’, directed by Stephen Frears, led to his part in 'The Queen’, which Frears also directed and received an Oscar nomination for. “I get on well with Stephen,” Laffan says. He has appeared in around 40 films. Other recent movies he has had parts in include 'Leap Year’ and 'The Runway', but its for his role as Georgie Burgess in 'The Snapper’ that he still gets plenty of abuse on the streets. Burgess was the character who got his daughter’s 20-year old friend, played by Tina Kellegher, pregnant. “He was a pathetic figure,” Laffan says. “I get far more slagging over that than I do for Pat Mustard!” Laffan also had a role in 'Space Truckers’ a 1996 movie starring Dennis Hopper, which has become a cult classic amongst students in the United States. Television acting credits include 'The Running Mate’, 'The Clinic' , 'On Home Ground', 'Strumpet City’ and 'Eastenders’. Pat Laffan senior passed away in the 1950s, and Catherine sold the Dollardstown farm in the 1960s. Both are laid to rest in St Mary’s Cemetery, Navan, and Pat, who now lives in Dun Laoghaire, often likes to bring visitors for a drive around the Navan and Trim areas which hold such happy memories for him.