One hundred years ago, the killing of an Irishman from Athy Road, Carlow would not alter the course of the War of Independence or Civil War that engulfed a nation but would be part of a massive sea change of attitudes and rules that governed Hollywood. Born in 1872, William Deane-Tanner spent his early life living and being educated in Carlow but when he failed to qualify for the British military school at Sandhurst and follow in his father’s footsteps, he immigrated to the United States in 1891.
“The declaration of George Hoey, parish clerk of Termonfeckin in the county of Louth and of Owen Maguire and Patrick Taaffe, of the said parish, farmers, states that on Wednesday last the 18th inst (August), as they were on the sea shore on the lands of Meagh’s farm (Meaghsland) in said parish, about half past three in the afternoon the tide being nearly in, they saw a mermaid (as they believed from having seen it described in books) of the full human size, swimming in the sea and directing its course towards the river Boyne:
Edgar Rice Burrough’s novel, Tarzan Of The Apes, introduced the world to its titular hero when it was published in 1912. Its story of the man raised in the jungle by apes and his mate, Jane, sparked the imagination of millions of readers leading to twenty-three sequels. A film version of the tale ensued in 1918 when Elmo Lincoln became the first in a long line of actors to play the Ape Man. Of the many that followed, Johnny Weissmuller emerged as cinemagoers favourite incarnation of Burrough’s immortal creation. He shared his popularity with the Irish actress who co-starred with him as Jane: Maureen O’Sullivan.
