Theatre and Politics in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland
Dónall Mac Cathmhaoill
University of Exeter Press
ISBN: 978-1-80413-200-5
214 pages, Hardcover
DOI: 10.64741/799025njcajo
Review author: Laura Rodríguez-Davis
More than a quarter of a century on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), theatre remains a prolific medium of political expression in Northern Ireland. The changing contours of Northern Ireland’s socio-political landscape inevitably make their way to local stages as theatremakers employ their craft for advocacy and fostering good relations. Authored by creative writing lecturer Dónall Mac Cathmhaoill with nearly thirty years of experience in the theatre sector, Theatre and Politics in Post-Conflict Northern Ireland not only delineates the changes in Northern Irish theatre post-Agreement but contextualises those changes within the political atmosphere that influences the arts sector.
The scope of Mac Cathmhaoill’s analysis includes specific works and plays along with the theatre companies and artists that produce them, all embedded in relevant political context. The writer focuses on professional productions primarily focused on community and politics. However, many theatre professionals producing civically-minded work involve non-professionals with lived experience in their development. To evaluate this practice, Mac Cathmhaoill regularly references sociologist Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation (1969) throughout the tome as a helpful gauge of the community engagement of a given project. Exploration of the various development and collaboration methods among playwrights, producers, and community members and evaluation of their merits and weaknesses is a particular strength of this publication.
Mac Cathmhaoill’s research is further bolstered by interviews with significant figures from Northern Ireland’s theatre community, such as Martin Lynch, Jo Egan, Dominic Montague, Bríd Ó Gallchóir, Gearóid Ó Cairealláin and many others. While further elucidation regarding the inclusion criteria of the chosen interviewees (or even perhaps the exclusion criteria) would have been welcome, the selection still provides a robust breadth of satisfactory expertise to comment on the subject at hand.
The book is divided in two parts: the first five chapters are concerned with post-conflict theatre developed in the aftermath of the Troubles. The final three chapters examine the emergence of new theatrical endeavours focused on other community identities, namely migrants, LGBTQIA+ artists, and Irish language speakers.
But perhaps a word of warning for those less familiar with Northern Irish theatre: Northern Ireland does not boast the ethnic and racial diversity of its mainland counterparts. Readers should therefore be mindful of this difference in understanding Northern Ireland’s arts scene.
In the years leading up to and following the signing of the GFA, community involvement in developing theatrical pieces gained momentum. Essentially, theatre served as a crucial medium of social discourse regarding the conflict and subsequent peace efforts, particularly in the absence of formal reconciliation measures, Mac Cathmhaoill astutely notes.
As an example, The Wedding Community Play was a notable project in its engagement of both Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist (PUL) and Catholic/Nationalist/Republican (CNR) participants and collaborators and critical acclaim. The insights regarding this process collated by Mac Cathmhaoill through interviews will be of great interest to those interested in analysing the highs and lows of using the arts for reconciliation.
Those familiar with theatre-based approaches to post-conflict recovery will likely have heard of Theatre of Witness by American director Teya Sepinuck. Her work with community members directly impacted by or involved in the conflict led to testimonial pieces performed by the community members themselves rather than professional actors. Though Sepinuck has received no shortage of acclaim for this project, Mac Cathmhaoill offers meaningful critiques and valuable perspectives from local theatre practitioners.
Mac Cathmhaoill also delves into other examples and models of using theatre to address the legacy of conflict, providing the reader with alternative approaches for informative comparison. For instance, the author spends considerable time examining Jo Egan’s The Crack in Everything, which is considered verbatim theatre performed by a mix of both professional actors and members of the community who had lost their children to the conflict.
This exposition presents a vital contribution to the debate regarding the best way to address sensitive and controversial topics using drama: is it better to witness raw truth or learn from reality-informed fiction? While no specific solution is advocated for, any productive dialogue on the matter would certainly benefit from the insights put forward in this analysis.
In a revelation that may come as a surprise to many, Mac Cathmhaoill observes that post-conflict projects often focus more on singular community advocacy rather than improving cross-community relations. Early plays such as Binlids and Forced Upon Us, for example, emphasised the perspectives of the CNR community. These advocacy-minded productions acted as countercultural resistance to unionist dominance of most media and cultural outlets.
Despite the perception that PUL are less theatrically engaged than their CNR counterparts, the author dedicates an entire chapter to spotlighting PUL playwrights, including Marie Jones, Gary Mitchell and David Ireland, and their works. The Decade of Centenaries, furthermore, proved to be a very fruitful era among PUL theatremakers. Researchers seeking a well-collated resource on the PUL community in theatre will find this chapter invaluable.
An overview of post-conflict political theatre in Northern Ireland would not be complete without discussing the emergence of artistry reflecting the embrace of new identities, which Mac Cathmhaoill rightly reviews.
With the cessation of violent protracted conflict, the racial and ethnic makeup of Northern Ireland became more diverse as migrants from around the world began to settle in Northern Ireland. An imagination for a world beyond the Troubles, the scholar suggests, began to take root and eventually made its way into the theatre.
Still, as Mac Cathmhaoill clearly lays out, a persistent momentum for diversifying Northern Ireland’s theatre landscape has prevailed even as more migration and diversity has also brought an increase in racist attacks. In response, initiatives such as Tinderbox Theatre Company’s Memory House and In the Land of Green Pasture, paved the way for diverse voices and stories to feature in the north’s dramatic repertoire.
On this topic, the author touches on his personal experience as a theatre practitioner, lending an authority to his account that still maintains a professional distance. Mac Cathmhaoill’s review draws much needed attention to issues of ownership and partnership in developing projects with under-represented ethnically-mixed artists who often lack name recognition in the arts sphere.
When it comes to equality for the LGBTQIA+ community, Northern Ireland has historically lagged behind the rest of the UK. Nonetheless, queer theatre has firmly established itself as a mainstay of the Northern Irish arts industry. Even prior to the GFA, as Mac Cathmhaoill makes clear, queer characters and stories featured in plays such as Martin Lynch’s Crack Up and Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Toward the Somme.
Apart from the Introduction, this chapter on queer theatre is the longest of the book. Given the highly-politicised nature of LGBTIA+ identities and experiences, there is no shortage of political controversy that undergirds the growth of queer Northern Irish theatre. The contextualised political backdrop Mac Cathmhaoill features, while certainly interesting in and of itself, serves to further his thoughtful cultural analysis.
Significantly, the author briefly explores the intersections of support for queer identities within the PUL and CNR communities and some of their contradictions. He also spotlights a few notable playwrights, such as Stacey Gregg, Shannon Yee, and Dominic Montague, and their advocacy works on queer experiences. In essence, for anyone studying LGBTQIA+ arts and culture in Northern Ireland, this chapter offers an intriguing overview that will certainly inspire and inform further study.
As the Irish language becomes increasingly mainstream, Irish language theatre also grows in popularity and relevance. To fully appreciate the value of Irish language theatre in Northern Ireland, not only is a locale-specific history needed but an explanation of the political and cultural significance of the language, particularly as it relates to the conflict, is also necessary, which the author helpfully provides. Theatre aside, Mac Cathmhaoill’s elucidation also holds value for understanding the culture wars that have sparked regarding the use of the Irish language in public spheres-a debate that largely reflects entrenched community divisions.
Yet, as is made evident throughout the chapter, the Irish language, and its theatrical manifestations, persist despite any opposition. Aisling Ghéar, the north’s only professional Irish language theatre company, has produced many plays in Irish, presenting a mix of translated pieces and original works. Mac Cathmhaoill contends that the primary obstacles, at present, for Irish language theatre is funding rather than politics, which could be interpreted as a sign of progress and achieved normativity.
This volume is likely best used as an entry point to more comprehensive or specific research rather than a definitive documentation of the breadth of post-conflict Northern Irish political theatre. As a theatre practitioner and the sole author of this work, the researcher’s experiences in the industry inform his investigation, which predominantly reflects his purview, though certainly well-balanced by the perspectives of his interviewees.
Nevertheless, Mac Cathmhaoill brings a salient overview to the existing scholarship regarding Northern Irish theatre that will certainly serve as a touchstone for current and future discourse on the topic, ensuring that the endeavours of theatremakers committed to practises of social change and applied theatre in the age of post-conflict theatre take centre stage.
References Arnstein, S.R. (1969) A Ladder of Citizen Participation. Journal of the American Planning Association, 35(4): 216-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225
