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The Flight of the Wild Geese

on Third Programme

Between the years 1691 and 1750 more than 450,000 Irishmen died in the service of France (Abbe MacGeoghagan)

A ballad opera on the history of the Irish Brigade in the service of France from the Treaty of Limerick (1691) to the decline of the Stuart cause in the 1750s

PROLOGUE
At the Court of Irish History

PART 1: The Road to Limerick

PART 2: Swordsmen of France

EPILOGUE: Soldiering On

Written by Francis Dillon
Music composed and arranged by Tristram Cary
with the Ambrosian Singers

The cast includes Alan Barry, Dominic Behan, Kenneth Dight, Rio Fanning, Denys Hawthorne, Robert Irwin, Haydn Jones, Barry Keegan, Jack MacGowran, Kerry Marsh, Robert Mooney, Brian O'Higgins, James Page, P.G. Stephens, Harry Towb, Michael Turner and Norman Wynne
Produced by Francis Dillon
: second broadcast

P. G. Stephens broadcasts by permission of 'the Governors of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Aron

'What held this programme together was panache - panache in dialogue and music and in the way they were put over. Without that. there would have been every danger of the subject proving intractable, because it covers sixty years and more of military history... Alternatively the wanderings of the Irish brigade of Catholics loyal to the House of Stuart - the "Wild Geese" of the title -Â alternatively, these could have been crystallised on dramatic characters. Mr. Francis Dillon, producing his own script, did neither. He seems to have aimed at a complex impression in sound of the morale of exiles committed to war: I think he got with it ' (Laurence Kitchin in The Critics)

Contributors

Written By:
Francis Dillon
Arranged By:
Tristram Cary
Unknown:
Alan Barry
Unknown:
Dominic Behan
Unknown:
Kenneth Dight
Unknown:
Rio Fanning
Unknown:
Denys Hawthorne.
Unknown:
Robert Irwin
Unknown:
Haydn Jones
Unknown:
Barry Keegan
Unknown:
Jack MacGowran
Unknown:
Kerry Marsh
Unknown:
Robert Mooney
Unknown:
Brian O'Higgins
Unknown:
James Page.
Unknown:
G. Stephens
Unknown:
Harry Towb
Unknown:
Michael Turner
Unknown:
Norman Wynne
Produced By:
Francis Dillon
Unknown:
P. G. Stephens
Unknown:
Laurence Kitchin

Third Programme

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