Belfast Circus Bed of Nails

"My husband, Mike Moloney, was one of the founders of the Belfast Community Circus School in 1985. Mike was originally from Toowoomba, Australia and had trained as a drama teacher. He came to Ireland in 1981, and within a couple of years he started doing workshops teaching unicycling, juggling, stilt walking, rolla bolla and acrobalance. Mike met Donal McKendry who was also a performer, and they began, with myself, running a regular Saturday workshop in the Ormeau Recreation Centre in addition to the others, in 1985. This was the beginning of the Belfast Community Circus School, which went on to grow and grow, and they now have a purpose built school with classes running daily. During the 1980s, the circus was not seen as something you did or learned, but something that you visited and went to watch. There was no where in Ireland to train as a circus performer. It was Mike, with his vision, who pioneered this and changed the perspective of the circus as an activity to a career. We met in 1981. Anna Scher, in London, had a drama school in the 1980s. She had written a book on drama and children, which Mike had read in Australia. In 1981, I was the Staff Development and Training Officer for Save the Children at the time, and organised a weekend workshop in October 1981 with Anna. Mike came to the workshop and was very excited, and that is how we first met. The key to the bed of nails is to ensure that each and every nail is the exact same height. There is also an additional board of nails, which Mike used to out on top of himself while lying on the bed of nails. "