Sheila O’Kelly pays tribute to the country’s leading puppeteer and one of its most popular entertainers

 

Eugene Lambert was born in Sligo in 1928 to John and Eileen Lambert. Eugene attended Summerhill College and later was educated at Sligo’s Municipal Technical School. When he was eight years old, he made his first puppet and had trained himself to be a skilled ventriloquist by the age of twelve.

Fifteen year-old Eugene and his puppet, ‘Frankie’, took part in a show in Manorhamilton, County Leitrim. He carved the puppet’s head from wood. From there on, he made his own puppets, first from wood and later moulded from plastic. When he completed his education as a trained fitter, his first job was in Denny’s Bacon factory in Sligo.

In 1950, Eugene married Mary (Mai) Bolton and they had ten children. When Eugene secured a job in a commercial refrigeration company in Dublin, the family left Sligo and resided in Monkstown in Dublin. Still keen on being an entertainer, Mai entered Eugene with his puppet ‘Frankie’ in a talent competition.

Eugene won the competition and was booked for appearances in the Queen’s theatre and Capitol theatre in Dublin. ‘Frankie’ became ‘Finnegan’, the storyteller. While still holding down his day job, Eugene with his puppet ‘Finnegan’ performed in variety shows and cabarets all over Ireland.

By 1954, Eugene was supporting Laurel and Hardy at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin. He then toured the United Kingdom music halls for eighteen months. He appeared in Gaels of Laughter in the Gaiety theatre, Dublin with Maureen Potter (RIP), and was a regular guest in the summer cabaret in Jury’s Hotel, Dublin.

In the early 1960s, Eugene presented Finnegan Again, a programme for young people on Radio Éireann.

He made puppets for RTÉ children’s programmes ‘Murphy agus a Chairde’ (Murphy and his Friends) and ‘Brogeen Follows a Magic Tune’. He was cast as Punch Costello in the 1967 drama film ‘Ulysses’, based on James Joyce’s 1922 novel of the same name. Set in Dublin, this was the first adaption of the novel, forty-five years after its publication.

Eugene realised his puppets could be used to tell stories involving magic, fantasy and Irish mythology. With Don Lennox, he devised the classic children’s television programme ‘Wanderly Wagon’ based around a magical flying horse-drawn caravan and followed the characters to magical lands of Irish mythology and outer space.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own