Sam worked in the shipyard as a painter and later in Belfast Corporation, now Belfast City Council, where he was a trade union activist and shop steward. He was also a committed democratic socialist and political activist for the NI Labour Party. His prophetic plays dealt with the then-taboo subjects of sectarianism, fundamentalist intolerance and electoral malpractice.
Staged amid great controversy his best-known work ‘Over the Bridge’ (1960), was seen by over 40,000 people in Belfast, the largest number for any play before or since, a landmark in our cultural history and sadly prophetic of the Troubles. On both the stage and through his political activism Sam Thompson showed an overriding sense of humanity, decency and fair play.
Tragically, he died prematurely of a heart attack at the age of 48 on 15 February 1965 while in the offices of the NI Labour Party.
The epitaph on his gravestone reads ‘His was the voice of many men’.
Sam Thompson held to the values which we all hold dear about the kind of society we would like to live in. During the evening a number of local actors including Tim Loane, Julia Dearden, Dan Gordon and Alan McKee preformed a dramatic reading of Sam Thompsons life. This performance can be listen to by clicking the links below.
OVER THE BRIDGE
For Paddy Devlin
I crossed a bridge and thought to shake the dust
From off my feet, but it was not to be;
For though I fled across the Irish Sea,
Nursing resentment and disgust
That individuals had betrayed their trust
And held the public stage in ignominy,
Events o’ertook the ancient enemy,
And time has mellowed memory, as it must.
Homeward I crawl, a wretched prodigal,
To bide awhile, and then again depart –
To leave once more, once more to feel bereft –
Your picture album in my mental holdall,
The hills of Antrim etched upon my heart,
For truth to tell, I never really left.