National Concert Hall,
22 December 2021,
7 January 2022
By Theo Dorgan
No more than is the case in other countries, but to pernicious effect all the same, we in Ireland are bedevilled by partial and partisan versions of the past. All too often, great events are second-guessed, edited, half-forgotten, refought and recast, as if the past can be unloosed from the rigours and facts of what actually happened. Almost always, such acts of deliberate or merely slovenly recollection are used to justify, or give a mandate to, some political action or ambition of the present moment. I do not speak here against rigorous, informed, interpretation and reinterpretation, leading to nuanced and amplified understanding, but rather against versions of a given event in the past that serve only to distort our understanding of the present moment and thereby distort and in some instances close down our options for the future.
I had been thinking of this for some time when it occurred to me that we are likely to find, when it comes to commemorating the Civil War, particular distortions of the past that would serve not to open the road forward but to send us spiralling back into dead-end arguments, that would have us, in Heaney’s words, ‘nurse our little destinies again’. The roots of the Civil War, the lineaments of what was to come, are clear and evident in the Dáil Debates that considered the Treaty on offer from the British. Our memories of those debates—I mean the memories of those of us who are not professional historians—are clouded and murky, insofar as we are aware at all of what was at stake and what was meant and said. I thought that it might be helpful to stage some event that would bring the Debates out into the light, to allow those passionate figures from the past to speak again, to articulate and rehearse the great issues that were, or seemed to be, at the heart of the argument.
The great imperative in this act of resurrection was to let these recovered figures speak in their own words, to change nothing of what was said, to allow the inherent charge of drama speak for itself.
The record of the Treaty Debates comes to some 440,000 words. I cut it down to approximately 139,000 words, still far too long for a conventional stage presentation, but after many months of work I could not see how to make it shorter if I were to allow full and fair articulation of the arguments, if I were to convey the passion, the human frailties, the personal jealousies and the carefully considered political analyses that animated this, the single most important debate in twentieth-century Irish politics. But how to stage what would amount to perhaps twenty hours of theatre? The answer came as an inspired suggestion from Catriona Crowe, archivist, historian and national treasure.
I had long been an admirer of Anú Productions, whose work on, for instance, the 2013 Lockout, the Easter Rising, the Somme and the Magdalene Laundries has been revolutionary in deploying the immediacy and impact of immersive theatre. Anú is a world-leader in theatre of this kind—bold, imaginative and visionary. What had been a dream, then, became an imminent fact when Catriona introduced Louise Lowe and I to each other and told us, simply, ‘You two have to do this’. The speed with which Anú embraced and developed the original simple idea has been a revelation to me—what Matt Smyth, Owen Boss, Lynnette Moran and Louise have come up with, their vision of the production, seems to me extraordinary.
What had been a possibility is now on the brink of becoming a reality. With the generous and encouraging support of the Decade of Centenaries Commemorations Committee, Anú will stage the Treaty Debates in Earlsfort Terrace, site of the original debates. Directed by Louise Lowe, this event will run in two parts over two days, ten hours each day, on 22 December 2021 and 7 January 2022 for live (in person) audiences at Earlsfort Terrace. Digital audiences will also be invited to experience a durational streamed broadcast of the live performance as it unfolds. For both live and digital audiences, it will be apparent just how pertinent and vibrant these debates feel today. The themes that animated those deputies, those debates, are still live issues on the island of Ireland—partition, the relationship with a supra-national association of states, our relationship with the former colonial power, the relationship between North and South, to take just a few. Equally, and lending both force and anguish to the drama, it becomes all too clear how even the great issues of the day are mediated through individual vanities and strained idealism, petty and sometimes bitter personal jealousies, the incapacity for disciplined analysis, the influence of external agencies and individuals. My hope is that this immersive experience in the truth of the past will strengthen and fortify us, all of us here on the island of Ireland, as we ask ourselves soberly, thoughtfully, now who do we want to be?
More details from anuproductions.ie and nch.ie.
Theo Dorgan is a poet, writer and member of Aosdána.