Historical Record · Dublin, 30 March 1942
Dublin Theatre in Wartime — The Strings Are False at the Olympia, 1942
Olympia Theatre, Dame Street
Catalogue details
Description
An original programme from the first Dublin production of Paul Vincent Carroll’s wartime drama, presented at the Olympia by Shelah Richards and Michael Walsh during its celebrated 1942 run.
- Date
- 30 March 1942
- Place
- Olympia Theatre, Dame Street, Dublin
- Country
- Ireland
- Category
- Irish Ephemera · Theatre & Performance
- Production
- The Strings Are False by Paul Vincent Carroll
- Presented by
- Shelah Richards and Michael Walsh
- Printer
- Juverna Press Ltd., Dublin
- Dimensions
- Measurements gladly provided on request
- Reference
- TBH-IRL-EPH-OLYMPIA-1942-STRINGS
- Medium
- Printed folded programme; front and back covers illustrated here
- Condition
- Please consult the photographs for condition. Additional photographs are available on request.
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Historical context & sources
Context, attribution and documentary significance.
The Production
A programme from the original Olympia run.
Paul Vincent Carroll’s wartime drama premiered at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on 16 March 1942, directed by Shelah Richards. This programme is dated Monday, 30 March 1942, placing it two weeks into the same original production. The wording “The First Production” on the cover refers to that production rather than to a single opening-night performance.
The programme therefore documents the play at the moment of its first stage life in Dublin, before its later publication under the expanded title The Strings, My Lord, Are False.
The Play
War, working-class life and a major 1942 Dublin success.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography describes Carroll’s 1942 play as a drama of the Clydeside air raids, concerned with the effects of German bombing on a working-class community. Its topical wartime setting gave the production unusual immediacy in neutral Ireland during the Emergency.
A 1946 theatre-industry account recalled that The Strings Are False ran for nine weeks at the Olympia and later returned for a further five weeks, describing it as the theatre’s Dublin record. Surviving programmes are therefore documents not merely of one play but of a notable moment in the Olympia’s transition from variety toward sustained dramatic production.
Dublin in Print
A small commercial record of the city around the theatre.
The back cover preserves a dense layer of contemporary Dublin advertising and production logistics. It names suppliers of medical gases, dairy-engineering equipment, a stretcher, stage cross, electric table lamp and theatre lighting, alongside advertisements for H.B. Ice Cream, Hughes Bros. of Rathfarnham, Walter Brown & Co. and O’Neill’s at Suffolk Street and Fleet Street.
These details turn the programme into a compact primary source for Dublin commercial and theatrical life in 1942, complementing the cultural importance of the production itself.
The programme itself is the primary source for the 30 March 1942 date. The following external sources were used to verify the production and its wider context.
- Dictionary of Irish Biography — Paul Vincent CarrollConfirms that Carroll’s 1942 wartime play premiered at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre and was directed by Shelah Richards.
- Boston College, Burns Library — Irish theater publications and ephemeraInstitutional finding aid records Carroll, Paul Vincent. The Strings are False, 1942 under Olympia Theatre material.
- Theatre World / Theatrecrafts archive, 1946Contemporary retrospective account stating that the production ran for nine weeks and later for five weeks, and describing its importance to the Olympia.
- PlayographyIreland — Olympia TheatreLists The Strings are False by Paul Vincent Carroll among works associated with the Olympia Theatre.
