The Lions of Lisbon: A Play of Two Halves

Willy Maley is Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow. Recent work includes two essay collections: Celtic Connections: Irish-Scottish Relations and the Politics of Culture, co-edited with Alison O’Malley-Younger (Oxford and Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013), and Romantic Ireland: From Tone to Gonne; Fresh Perspectives on Nineteenth-Century Ireland(Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), co-edited with Paddy Lyons and John Miller.

IAN AULD was unsurpassable on a football park in his youth. In 1958 he played in a Scottish Juvenile Select against England. He could have gone to Arsenal when he was 16, but went to the Balmore Bar at Saracen Cross instead. He played outside right and learned to write inside. After taking a wrong turn as a young man, Ian went on to rebuild his life. He married Eileen, and had two daughters, Sharon and Annette, and a son, Ian. An adoring husband and father, Ian was also a creative force, an actor and songwriter who wrote poems, short stories and sketches for a number of years before he passed away on 4 November 1998. Ian was a great fan of Joe Orton, as well as his beloved Celtic. The Lions of Lisbon was his only full-length play. His memory lives on in the stories he told and the family he loved.