New releases from Laura Veirs, The Waterboys, and Yard Act
Latest editorial
Ireland's past haunts the present in dramatisation of 1916 war crime
Elinor Lawless as Hanna in To Have To Shoot Irishmen
[Mike Massaro]
Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
ANGUS REID considers the power of the podcast as a vehicle for consensus building in opposition to mainstream media narratives
GLENN FOSBRAEY recommends a biography worth reading for both existing George Michael fans and those yet to be converted
FRANCIS DEVINE introduces a new collection of essays that draws on Pease McKenna’s example to indicate future paths for the movement
KEVIN DONNELLY and MARIA DUARTE review Shoot the People, The Last One For The Road, Rosebush Pruning, and Moana
JAMES WALSH recommends an exceptional documentary about the experience of Western doctors in Gaza
To Have to Shoot Irishmen
Omnibus Theatre, London/Touring
AT A time when the recent history of Britain’s bloody engagement with Ireland is again in the news— the inquiry into the 1971 massacre of 11 innocent people by the Parachute Regiment in Ballymurphy is ongoing — the title alone of Lizzie Nunnery’s play, let alone its content, certainly has resonance.
Set in Dublin during the week of the 1916 Easter Rising, To Have to Shoot Irishmen is based on the events surrounding the murder of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. “Skeffy” was a writer and radical activist in the cause of Irish independence who was captured and executed by British troops in what would now be described as a war crime. He was arrested after attempting to prevent looting by Dublin's inner-city poor.
Nunnery's brief piece, directed by Gemma Kerr for Almanac Arts, is played out in what looks like the interior of a bombed-out building. A series of expressionist snapshots, it’s interspersed with songs, and it’s particularly strong in its vivid descriptions of a city and its inhabitants ravaged by the fighting.
Similar stories
MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht
PETER MASON applauds a stage version of Le Carre’s novel that questions what ordinary people have to gain from high-level governmental spying
A new group within the NEU is preparing the labour movement for a conversation on Irish unity by arguing that true liberation must be rooted in working-class solidarity and anti-sectarianism, writes ROBERT POOLE
The independent TD’s campaign has put important issues like Irish reunification and military neutrality at the heart of the political conversation, argues SEAN MacBRADAIGH