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On Saturday 7 October, at 7:30pm a new play, Judging Famine’s Follies, by Anthony Russell, will be premiered in the Riverside Reformed Presbyterian Church, Newry before it moves to Brownlow House and the National Famine Museum, Strokestown. This historical fantasy was commissioned by the Irish Heritage Trust in conjunction with Newpoint Players. It is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs Shared Island Civic Engagement Fund.
In Judging Famine's Follies art and history rhyme as long dead characters, who were alive during the Great Famine, argue over culpability and challenge our perceptions.
Like Trevelyan, the Irish Landlord bears the weight of popular disapproval for his (mainly male) behaviour during the Great Famine. Yet, on the landscape there are many tributes to the benevolence of the landlord class, including Scrabo Tower and, controversially, Lady Londonderry’s limestone slab on the Antrim Coast Road. Before this stone was vandalised it reminded those passing of England’s generosity in Black 47!
In Judging Famine’s Follies, John Mitchel, Irish patriot, American Confederate, and supporter of slavery calls Lord Londonderry from the grave to answer in the Tribunal of Natural Justice, how his actions during the Great Famine merited the building of Scrabo Tower. Lord Londonderry is defended by Major Mahon of Strokestown, the first landlord to be assassinated during the Great Famine; perhaps at the suggestion of the parish priest?
Lady Londonderry, Lord Dufferin and Lord Brownlow, fellow aristocrats, with their own foibles and follies, are called as witnesses. All the ghosts are aware of what has happened in the world since they entered the grave. Not surprisingly, within the play, there is an excellent ghost story.
The judge, Dionysus Cronos, was present at the trial of Socrates. The audience is the Tribunal. Experience of Russell’s plays would suggest that the Tribunal’s judgement may not be predicable. Pearse was found not guilty on the Shankill Road; perhaps an indication of balanced writing and engaging performances by the Newpoint Players, as directed by Donal O’Hanlon.
Thanks to the Shared Island initiative Judging Famine’s Follies is free to all.
