FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
Back in 2022 I attended one of the most touching, and poignant, pieces of theatre I had been to in a long, long time. Called The Quiet Land it was produced by Barnstorm Theatre in the Home Rule Club as part of the launch of their lunchtime theatre as part of the AKA (Alternative Kilkenny Arts) Fringe Festival.
The play, written by Malachy McKenna, won the PJ O’Connor Radio Drama Award in 2014. It is, to quote the blurb, “a celebration of the humour, resilience and endearing innocence of an exiled generation as it struggles to survive in the isolated rural Ireland of today”.
It is a heartfelt tribute to a rare breed of forgotten men who live a long way in off the road. Two elderly farmers, Eamon and Nashee, played by two of Kilkenny’s finest actors, Ger Cody – regular contributor to this paper – and Brendan Corcoran, meet at a gate on a remote hillside. These men are old friends, old rivals, old neighbours. They are men of heart, of humour, of hardness.
Their conversation is a throwback to a gentler time, when silence was as telling as a declaration, and meaning was more often than not found between the lines rather than in them. But there’s nothing gentle about today’s conversation. In facing the bitter reality of their remote defiance, they have grown fearful and desperate. Now they are forced to confront each other with some heart-breaking truths that test their friendship to its limit.
And here’s the good news you can catch this wonderful play in the Home Rule Club on Thursday January 30, Friday 31, Saturday, February 1 and Sunday 2. Commencing at 7pm. (note the time) tickets cost €17. You will not be disappointed.
Oh, and according to Ger Cody’s Facebook page, Philip Hardy, one of the founders, and artistic directors of Barnstorm, will direct the play. He also chatted about his life in theatre with PM O’Sullivan in last week’s Observer. I wish you well in your future endeavours, Philip, and I applaud you for keeping Barnstorm alive, and well, for so long.
Our school (St Patrick’s De La Salle) brought many of our pupils to your children‘s productions (many written by the late Maeve Ingoldsby) which they always enjoyed.
I have to say that I love tuning in (if that’s the correct phrase) to Ger Cody’s Facebook page – love reading the Friday Poem, the anecdote from history plus he keeps me up to date with what’s going on in St Mary’s Parish (my parish for so many years). Thank you, Ger. Here are a few snippets from his page:
The famous saying “when one door closes, another door opens” is actually a famous quote by Alexander Graham Bell (who gave us the telephone). The quote ends with “but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us”.’Never knew that. Worth thinking about for sure.
To which Simon Bourke, local author, (we soldiered together many moons ago on the Kilkenny Standard newspaper, the brainchild of Seán Courtney, a man ahead of his time) replied: “Tommy Docherty (famous football manager, Man U 1972-77) was a very funny man. ‘In football’, he said, ‘there’s never a door closes but there’s another one waiting to slam shut in your face.’.”
Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you, Gerry. Oh, and here’s another little gem from Gerry’s page: “The English saying ‘Ta-Ra’, as in goodbye, which I’ve heard numerous times from my English cousins, even some of my Irish relatives – the late Jack Kenny frequently used it along with ‘Toodleypip’ but let me not digress. ‘Ta-Ra’ comes from, believe it or believe it not, the Irish language ‘Tabhair Aire meaning ‘take care’. It was widely used by Irish emigrants to Liverpool and eventually shortened to ‘Ta-Ra’.”
This reminds me very much of ‘plonk’ which, as all know, is used to describe cheap wine. Plonk actually comes from the French. Sort of. In World War 1 British soldiers received a daily ration of white wine – vin blanc which the Brits shortened to plonk and if you say it quickly, and with maybe a cockney accent, you will understand how it came about.
Cheers.
