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Art and history rhyme in Anthony Russell’s political and historical fantasy, ‘The Trial of P. H. Pearse in the Court of History’, which will be performed in, the Victorian Teas Rooms, Greenore, by the Newpoint Players next Friday 21 August at 7-30pm.
Tickets are available from Anne on 085782279 or at larkingreenore@yahoo.co.uk
This imaginative and challenging play, performed sees Padraic Pearse called from the grave to answer, in the Court of History, the charge that he committed treason against the People of Ireland by ignoring their democratic wishes and leading a violent rebellion.
The prosecutor is Carlingford’s Thomas D’Arcy McGee (1825 – 1868) a former Irish rebel who became the founding father of the Canadian Confederation. He was assassinated following his bitter condemnation of the 1866 Fenian Invasion of Canada. John Mitchel (1815 – 18750), the unrepentant physical force republican from Young Ireland, the Fenians and the slave owning Confederacy is called by Pearse to defend him.
Pearse’s mother also returns to speak of her son’s noble character. Professor Eoin MacNeill, who tried to call off the rising, is the witness for the prosecution.
All the shades are aware of what has happened in the world since they departed from it and comment accordingly. The audience is the jury.
In asking if the 1916 Rising was necessary and if Pearse can be held responsible for the turmoil of the last 100 years McGee and Mitchel exchange historical ‘facts’ and insults with style and humour.
The ‘Trial of P H Pearse before the Court of History has been at Féile an Phobail, in Carlingford Courthouse, in Dublin (in the house where Pearse was born on Pearse Street), in Newry Arts Centre, in Brownlow House (Ireland’s largest Orange Hall), in East Belfast, on the Shankill Road (where Pearse was found NOT guilty), and in Winnipeg, Montreal and Ottawa.
