Ex actor Gary puts talents to work for City Council

When Gary McMahon turned up at one of his first City Council meetings, a journalist was quick to note his presence. “Your father would turn in his grave to see you here,” the reporter quipped after learning he had joined the Council staff.

His father, Johnny McMahon, was a journalist with the Connacht Tribune until his death in 1977, an editor of the original Galway Observer and before that he worked with the Roscommon Champion – quite a feat considering he could not drive and lived in Galway’s Canal Road.

Gary’s father regularly worked late, covering corpo, VEC, harbour, and County Council meetings. To this day, the Communications Officer with the City Council attends events where people have a particular memory of something Johnny wrote.

“He hated going to Corporation meetings,” says Gary, referring to the city’s local authority before it was given City Council status. “He’d come back and call them a bunch of hoors and give them the skelp the next day in the Sentinel,” he laughs.

“But actually ‘the Corpo’ is in the blood. All belonging to me was born in the Waterworks in Terryland.”

Gary’s grandfather Tom Corcoran was a caretaker for the city’s waterworks for nearly 30 years up until 1950s and his family lived in the house now managed by the Simon Community on the Dyke Road. On Tom’s retirement the family got a corporation house on Father Burke Road in the Claddagh.

Gary’s mother was a telephonist in the P&T on Eglinton Street, who was quite a stunner in her day, says her son.

He recalls being quizzed during a haircut by Chick Gillen who had a knack of finding out exactly where you came from. “Rita Corcoran from the Waterworks – Miss Post Office 1952!” exclaimed the barber and boxing trainer.

Given his background, it is surprising Gary did not in his father’s footsteps and pursue a career in journalism. Their house had newspapers strewn everywhere and the radio was on constantly for snippets of news. Discussions about local and national politics dominated conversations.

From the age of nine, Gary used to accompany his father to Corinthians rugby matches when the club was on College Road. His father reported on these games. Gary’s job was to set up the phone call at the clubhouse with the Dublin newspapers and call his dad from the bar when a copy taker was ready to take the copy. That would become the next day’s match report.

While studying arts in UCG, drama and the arts became his big love. “I did nothing for four years in college except acting in plays, putting on plays. When I was doing the HDip I learned that I couldn’t control the kids. I broke my mother’s heart by announcing I was going to be an actor.”

He had very little work until he joined Macnas, the fledgling community arts group which burst onto national consciousness in the mid 1980s when its enormous Gulliver mannequin ‘washed up’ on Grattan Beach.

Gary’s main role was to look after the Macnas volunteers. By the late 90s the company boasted a large workforce, with 45 people working there on FÁS schemes at any one time. 

One of the biggest projects he was involved in was U2’s Zooropa Tour in 1993, where Macnas staged pre-concert shows to highlight the rise in fascism in Europe.

Gary played Captain Chickhead’s sidekick, while recruiting volunteers in the tour cities. During one show in Germany they were pelted with bottles as the audience twigged Macnas was pointing the finger at Nazism.

In the 10 years he worked there, Macnas became one of the key voices in the arts community and Gary was the community representative on various committees and forums, including the City Development Board.

When the Council advertised for community and enterprise development officers in 2000, his application was successful. As he approached 40 and after a decade with Macnas, he felt it was time for a change.

Gary’s role was to support the City Development board and implement the city’s ten-year strategy in economic, social and cultural policy. He also supported the development of the community forums.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.