LMFM Documentaries

'This documentary looks back on the career of Bunny Cox, the late Dundalk jockey, breeder and trainer, and one of the North East's greatest horsemen.He rode his first winner at the age of 13, was Irish champion amateur jockey on 5 occasions, and then went one to carve out a successful training career. Furthermore his family were synonymous with the town, and were one of the biggest employers in Dundalk for many years. The programme is presented and produced by Colm Corrigan.' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the story of Drogheda United’s incredible 2024 season when they won the FAI Cup for only the second time in their history, qualified for European football and retained their place in the Premier Division of the League of Ireland. It’s extra special when you consider that Drogheda’s players were mostly part-time, in a league where all of the other clubs boasted fully professional squads.No one envisaged what was to come in July, as the team were cut adrift at the foot of the Premier Division table and looking certainties to be relegated. Who would have believed that by early November they’d have achieved what can only be described as a remarkable turnaround in fortunes.Yes 2024 was indeed the Year of the UnderDrogs!Produced by Gerry Kelly, David Sheehan and Fionn O'Brien.All clips used are from LMFM Radio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Fiver for a TenorA one-hour radio documentary for LMFM Funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee A Fiver for a Tenor, a new one-hour radio documentary from Little Road Productions Ltd., will broadcast at 12noon on Monday October 25th on LMFM. A ‘Fiver for a Tenor’ is a one-hour radio documentary that will transport us back to May 1963, when a then unknown tenor took to the stage of the Town Hall, Dundalk for his first ever solo performance not in an opera outside of Italy. His name? Luciano Pavarotti. ‘A Fiver for a Tenor’ explores a story that at first read, could be dismissed as local legend. But as we dig deeper, even local legends are often grounded in fact. It was the spring of 1963 - Eamon de Valera was President and Sean Lemass, Taoiseach. In the South of the country, preparations were well underway for the visit of US President John Kennedy early in the summer. In Dundalk, on May 7th, a group of opera lovers who together formed St. Cecilia’s Gramophone Society were on their way to Belfast to see a performance of Puccini’s La Boheme in the Grand Opera House. Waiting nervously behind the scenes before his performance on that day, was a man whose name would soon become recognised world-wide. That name was Luciano Pavarotti.  A few days later, the then 27-year was to perform in Dundalk, stopping over with other Italian singers as he was travelling to Dublin to take part in the opera Rigoletto hosted by the DGOS - Dublin Grand Opera Society (as Opera Ireland was then called) - in the Gaiety Theatre.  The sum paid for his performance in Dundalk? Five punts, with each ticket sold for a half crown. Five days later, on May 12th 1963, the now world-famous Pavarotti took to the small stage of the Town Hall in Dundalk and performed his first ever solo concert outside of Italy, to a small but appreciative audience and accompanied only by a piano. He performed Che Gelida Mamina from Puccini's La Boheme, La Donna E Mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto along with a role in the Duet from Puccini's Butterfly. ‘A Fiver for a Tenor’ explores the story behind how such a world-famous name began his international solo career on a humble Town Hall stage in Ireland. Helping us piece together this story is Sr. Leonie Marron, a lifelong friend of Monsignor Peter Shields, who helped organise the night.  Sr. Leonie recounts the strange rules that existed in the church at the time that meant that Monsignor Shields could organise the trips for the Society to these concerts to places like Dublin and Belfast, but was not allowed to attend many of the performances as it was forbidden by the Archbishop of the Diocese. Also interviewed are Paddy Brennan of the DGOS and Niall Morris, a founding member of ‘The Celtic Tenors’, who staged a show about Pavarotti’s life.     In the creation of this 1-hour radio documentary, ‘A Fiver for a Tenor’, we seek to elevate what was once local legend to the realms of fact and in doing so, recount an almost unbelievable tale for a modern audience. The documentary was funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee.-------@littleroadprods - Twitter@littleroadproductions – Facebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born in Meath, Made in HollywoodA 1-hour radio documentary for LMFM Radio Funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee Born in Meath, Made in Hollywood, a new radio documentary by Little Road Productions Ltd., will broadcast at 12noon on Monday December 26th 2022 on LMFM Radio.  Only 13 actors of Irish descent boast stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and very few realise that 3 of those were brothers (Owen, Matt and Tom Moore) who hailed from Fordstown, Co. Meath and who were stalwarts of the early Hollywood film industry, between them boasting over 600 Hollywood film credits. This one-hour radio documentary retells the story of the journey of the Moore Brothers from a small boreen in Co. Meath to Hollywood film stars, along with their contribution to the Golden Age of Hollywood. When the Moore family, father Tom, mother Rosanna (nee Carry) and their then four children Tom (13), Owen (10), Matt (8) and Mary emigrated to the US as steerage passengers on the SS Anchoria in May 1986, little did they know that their journey would take all of their children to the silver screens of Hollywood while three of them would make such a mark on the film industry that they would have their own stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  Tom and Rosanna’s journey to find a better life in the USA took them through the inspection channels of Ellis Island and initially on to Toledo, Ohio, where their fifth child Joe was born. Not long after, teenagers Tom and Owen, sensing that their future lay on the stage and not in the country fields of Ohio, ran away to join a travelling theatre company. They were both seasoned stage performers by the time the Hollywood motion picture industry kicked off in 1908 and both made their movie debuts that year - Owen in ‘The Guerrilla’ and Tom in ‘The Christmas Burglars’, filmed at the Biograph Studios run by the now infamous D. W. Griffith. Using interviews with Turtle Bunbury, broadcaster, historian and author, who featured the brothers in his recent book ‘The Irish Diaspora’, and Dr. Ruth Barton, Professor of Film Studies at Trinity College Dublin, along with on location commentary from local historians Stephen Ball and Kenny Timmons, the documentary uncovers the story of these siblings who were household names across the US by the mid 1920s, known as the Roaring Twenties, and became as well known as the other Hollywood elite of the Golden Age, starring alongside names like Mae West and Cary Grant. The documentary was funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee@littleroadprods - Twitter@littleroadproductions – Facebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whatever Happened to Gertrude Page?A 1-hour radio documentary for LMFM Radio Funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee Whatever Happened to Gertrude Page?, a new radio documentary by Chris Nikkel for Little Road Productions Ltd., will broadcast at 12noon on Monday October 31st 2022 on LMFM Radio.  Gertrude Page has been called the Maeve Binchy of her day. She’s also been called, ‘the Kipling of Rhodesia’, the country she lived out the last two decades of her life. Her 20 books sold 2.5 million copies worldwide, making her a household name in Britain and Ireland, and as far away as New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. Her most famous novel, Paddy the Next Best Thing, set in her favourite village of Omeath, in Co Louth, sold more than 300,000 copies.  So popular was Gertrude Page, that when she died in 1922, the play-adaptation of Paddy the Next Best Thing was on a record-breaking run at the Savoy, in London—the following year the Irish story hit the silver screen as a British-made silent film, and then was subsequently remade as a Hollywood blockbuster starting Janet Graynor and heartthrob Warner Baxter. Few writers could top the success of Gertrude Page in the early 20th Century. The question is: Whatever happened to Gertrude Page? Whatever happened to Gertrude Page? is the story of one writer who scaled the heights of fame and fortune, only to have her legacy dismantled just as quickly because the inevitable shifts in historical and political perspectives. It is a cautionary tale, but also an illustration of a how easily history moves on from the convictions and beliefs of the past.  The documentary was funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee.-------@littleroadprods - Twitter@littleroadproductions – Facebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

McClintock: The Forgotten ExplorerA one-hour radio documentary for LMFM Funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee McClintock: The Forgotten Explorer, a new one-hour radio documentary from Little Road Productions Ltd., will broadcast at 11am on Monday August 2nd on LMFM. 2019 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir Francis Leopold McClintock, a Dundalk native and someone whose name should be as well-known as Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean as one of the greatest Arctic Explorers of our time, but who has unfortunately largely been forgotten in his home town. Francis Leopold McClintock was born in 1819 at Seatown Terrace, Dundalk, Co. Louth. The eldest son of fourteen children, he was always an avid explorer and is rumoured to have spent as much time as possible out in the wilds of the Cooley Mountains, roaming the land as a child, always looking for his next big adventure.  With little formal education, he entered the Royal Navy as a gentleman volunteer in 1831, just before his 12th birthday. While in the Navy, he rose through the ranks and was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1845.  This was a time of immense Arctic Exploration by the British Navy, in the search of the elusive North West passage that would allow for safe and easy movement of both merchant and navy ships to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic Ocean.  The ill-fated Franklin expedition in 1845, where two ships and 129 men were lost, was a huge blow to British Arctic Exploration and in 1857, McClintock re-tread the route of the expedition and in the steps of another Scottish Explorer, John Rae, to confirm their fate that their ships became lodged in ice, causing the men to abandon them and begin to trek across the icy conditions, without correct equipment, food or water, until all finally perished. McClintock’s expedition not only allowed for closure of the Franklin narrative but also to finally map out the so-long sought after North West passage. Not only was McClintock a master explorer, he also pioneered new methods of polar travelling, preparation and packing styles, using sleds for ease on the body over hundreds of miles. Between 1852 and 1854, it is said that McClintock travelled 1,400 miles by sled and discovered 800 miles of previously unknown coastline along the Arctic Circle. He also amassed a vast collection of zoological and fossil specimens, many of which were new to science. Today the largest collection of these specimens is held in the Natural History Museum in Dublin.  Retiring from the army in 1884, he died in 1907 and is buried in the UK, while in his birthplace in Dundalk in Co. Louth, all that remained for many years to mark his memory was a small plaque on the wall of the house where he was born in Seatown Place, which has now been removed, and an exhibition in the local museum.  Over 200 years after his birth, this one-hour radio documentary places the name of Sir Francis Leopold McClintock in the same realm as Shackleton and Crean for those in his home town of Dundalk, Co. Louth and its wider environs. The documentary was funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the Television Licence Fee.-------@littleroadprods - Twitter@littleroadproductions – Facebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘The Big House’ holds an important place in Ireland’s rich history and heritage, with many dating back to the 17th century. Many abandoned and destroyed ‘Big Houses’ still litter the countryside, full of memories and stories long since forgotten. Left victim to the elements and a shadow of what they once were, for many, these stately homes have become symbols of a former divided society.Using interviews with both locals and historians recorded on location at these now abandoned houses, this one-hour radio documentary will explore the personal narratives behind a selection of these ‘Big Houses’ throughout the counties of Louth and Meath, allowing their rich history to be captured before they disappear from our landscape forever. Recounting the stories of the families who lived there, along with their impact on their local communities, their unique place in local and national history will be captured and preserved.For LMFM radio. Funded by the BAI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

LMFM CLASSICAL HOUR - NAVAN CHORAL & INSTRUMENTAL FESTIVAL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Mike Bunn, the renowned photographer, who celebrates his 80th Birthday this year, recalls moments from a remarkable life in conversation with Gerry Kelly. Yes the man behind the lens is In Camera for once in his life.... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that Migraine is the 7th most debilitating condition in the World, affecting up to 12% of the population!On a personal level Neuroscientist, Dr Sabina Brennan, knows all about Migraine and has encountered it extensively through her work.She wants to bust the myth that Migraine is just a headache but rather a neurological condition that can be treated and requires greater understanding all round.For the next hour, Dr Sabina Brennan shines a light on Migraine with her Documentary “Imaginers”  …….. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The year is 1809 in the city of London where Laurence Gilson from Oldcastle, County Meath is writing his last Will and Testament. It is an endowment that will have far reaching consequences for thousands of people across north Meath, Cavan, Westmeath and beyond, for more than two hundred years. Hear the story the story of Laurence Gilson and the educational legacy he left in his home town." On Dec 31st from 12 noon here on LMFM. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.