Buncrana man's play takes the stage for National Famine Commemoration
To mark Ireland's National Famine Commemoration Week, a rehearsed reading of a new play brought one of the darkest and most dramatic chapters of Irish history vividly to life within the haunting walls of the Irish Workhouse Centre
Performed by the Portumna Players Drama Group in the very spaces where the starving once sought refuge during the Great Hunger, 'Bishop Maginn: The Famine and the Fugitive' delivered a site-specific theatrical experience unlike anything the Centre has seen before.
Maginn was Derry's bishop during the worst years of the Great Hunger 1845 to 1848.
Under the direction of Marian Frawley, and with a deeply moving cast drawn from the Portumna Players, this remarkable true story spoke with an immediacy that only this setting could provide.
Written by Buncrana native Turlough McConnell, the play recounts the turbulent events of July 29, 1848, when the Young Ireland rebellion at Ballingarry, County Tipperary was crushed within hours. Its leaders were hunted down, imprisoned, and condemned. One fugitive, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, charged with treason and facing death, turned in desperation to the one man who might save him: Dr. Edward Maginn, the Catholic Bishop of Derry. What unfolded between them was an act of extraordinary courage that would alter the course of history on two continents.
What the audience witnessed was more than theatre. It was living history echoing through the very corridors where that history was made.
Martin Shiel, Chairman of South East Galway Integrated Rural Development (SEGIIRD), which produced the event, spoke of its impact: "We are delighted and honoured that ‘Bishop Maginn: The Famine and the Fugitive’ is part of our Community Programme of events in the lead up to our National Famine Commemoration.
Thanks to the Portumna Players Drama Group for staging a play that provides a very deep and moving experience. It is amazing that history tends to repeat itself and that the themes expressed last night are still present in today's world."
Following the performance, audiences heard reflections from two of Ireland's foremost scholars of the Great Hunger: Professor Christine Kinealy of Quinnipiac University, and Dr. Gerard Moran, Emeritus Professor and Director of the International Summer School at the University of Galway.
Dr. Christy Cunniffe introduced them, and their insights brought even greater depth and resonance to an already unforgettable evening.