FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES of the late actor Mick Lally have celebrated his life with the unveiling of a specially-commissioned window seat outside the Druid Theatre in Galway.

Lally, who co-founded the Druid with Garry Hynes and Marie Mullen, died on 31 August last year aged 64. His acting career had spanned almost four decades and he was celebrated both on stage and on screen.

The Co Mayo-native worked as a teacher before turning to the theatre full-time. He made his TV debut alongside Gabriel Byrne in Bracken, before appearing in Glenroe throughout its 18-year run in what for many was his most recognised role.

Marking the anniversary of Lally’s death, the Druid’s artistic director Garry Hynes said he had “always been at the very heart of the fabric of Druid”. She said there had been many conversations among them outside the theatre through the years and that “with this seat, Mick’s spirit and memory will forever be part of the theatre”.

He was a big, brave-hearted man with such passion for his craft that he may even whisper to us every now and again.

The window seat was designed by Tom de Paor, who was behind the Druid’s 2009 refurbishment. The seat’s inscription contains a line from the first Druid production in 1975, The Playboy of the Western World, in which Lally played the lead role of ‘playboy’ Christy Mahon:

Isn’t there the light of seven heavens in your heart alone, the way you’ll be an angel’s lamp to me from this out, and I abroad in the darkness spearing salmons in the Owen or the Carrowmore.