The Tailor (Ronan Wilmot) and Ansty (Nuala Hayes)
Yesterday was one of those days you don’t expect.
I somehow got into a discussion with some elderly people who were defensive about the good old days and the sense of spirit and community they experienced in the Ireland of the forties and fifties (and probably up to the seventies). That was near the end of a lunchtime talk, using excerpts from a number of films, by Christine Clear.
As the son of emigrants, I often wonder about how great the spirit and sense of community was during those years. Perhaps it was for those who didn’t have to emigrate, but I keep thinking of the emigrants I used to meet on the boat to Liverpool and Holyhead. Perhaps I met the wrong ones, but elderly men returning to England would often tell me that they never had a day’s freedom till they stepped on English soil. That was the recurring phrase.
When I got back home from Christine’s lecture (I want to see all of Heaven’s Gate, but I don’t think it’s on DVD), I had some time on my hands while waiting for a return call, so I got a wireless internet connection going on my Ubuntu-powered computer. It had taken me two weeks with the aid of a friend to get it going on Windows, but I got lucky. If anyone’s interested in such geeky matters they can read about that here [permanent link here]. Yes, that kind of day.
But clutching a kind invitation to the first night, I went to the new run of The Tailor and Ansty at the New Theatre in Temple Bar, Dublin. Adapted from the book of the same name by PJ O’Connor, it’s one of those stories I never got around to either reading or seeing, though I’ve known the background to it quite well, as it was notorious in its day and for long after.
When Eric Cross’s book was first published in 1942 it led to an immediate controversy which resulted in the senate in Dublin debating its contents for four days. The book featured many of the popular stories of a West Cork seanchaà and tailor Timothy Buckley. The subsequent banning of the book led to Tim and his wife Anastasia being visited by three of the local clergy, who forced him to burn his copy of the book in his own fireplace.
I’m told the locals, many of whom were children when it happened in the 1940s, dispute Frank O’Connor’s claim that the old couple were ostracized by their neighbours after the visit of the priests. That may be so, but the fact of the priests’ tyranny over the old couple, who were steeped in an Irish lore untouched by Victorian puritanism, is still appalling. Mr Buckley was 83 at the time, his wife some fourteen years or so younger.
Nuala Hayes (who also directs) as Ansty, and Ronan Wilmot as the Tailor, give heart-rending performances, beautifully using silence, sighs, pitch of voice and glances to both comic and tragic effect. At the end, there was a large lump in my throat, I’m not ashamed to admit.
Here then, was the community the pensioners had spoken about earlier in the day; and here too, was the reason so many emigrants were glad to see the back of Ireland, why they never had a day’s freedom until they stepped on English soil. I find it all heartbreaking, somehow.
If you can, go along and support live independent theatre. It’s not Beckett or O’Neill, but it does speak deeply to the human heart, and tells us how we must always be wary of the rise of little upstart tyrants who like nothing better than to stymy the spirit of good people. May they or their likes never flourish in Ireland ever again.
The New Theatre website is a little out of date, but be assured that the new run of the play is on for the next few weeks. Especially if you are young, go to see it. It will help you appreciate the freedoms you enjoy.
