'My Irish Passport' - Green Curtain Theatre

Dr Elleesa Rusby and Noelette Hanlon of the Luton Irish Forum.

Green Curtain Theatre urgently needs your help for our next production which will focus on Irish identity. It will be a combination of songs and stories that will be performed live.

Travelling on an Irish passport can be one way of proudly demonstrating your Irish identity. This is why we would like to hear from the many Irish people living in Great Britain, including second and third generation Irish who travel on an Irish passport. Some will have had a passport for years, others only got one after Brexit.

Ireland has changed radically in the last 50 years, which is why we would also like to hear from those who were ‘Irish born’ but who choose to travel on another passport until recently. Maybe because of the way that Ireland was governed in the first 50 or so years of the Irish Free State when certain groups were discriminated against and unfairly treated.
You could also be Irish born but living in England during the ‘Troubles’ in the 1970s-1990s. Were you someone who thought it safer to travel on a British passport at this time?

Finally, we also love to hear from people who are only entitled to an Irish passport but travel on it with great pride.

What are we looking for?
We are looking for people’s individual reasons behind choosing to travel on an Irish passport. Is there a story behind you getting your passport? Maybe memories of people and places? Or, are you someone like Maureen, who felt it strengthened her identity?

“Spending my school holidays in Donegal gave me a connection with the land and a strong sense of my Irish heritage. I remember the long journeys back to Ireland. Squaddies waving their rifles as we passed through the North. Crossing the border into Donegal and to the small family farm on the shores of Mulraney Bay. Those summer days would be spent watching the chickens scratching in the soil, attempting to milk the cows and accompanying the men in the field digging peat. All of this gave me a great connection to the land that was part of my heritage.

The passport with its beautiful illustrations of people, places, myths and tunes continues that connection. Our family was Protestant, but my dad was still proud to speak some Irish. It would have meant a lot to him that the language he loved interweaves through the pages of his daughter’s new passport. I am delighted to have one.”

Can you tells us why you chose to apply for an Irish passport? Did you acquire your Irish passport recently? Were you travelling on passport from another country? What made you choose to ‘switch’ or ‘add another’? Does having an Irish passport represent a homecoming, reconciliation or even conflict with your sense of ‘Irishness’?

Whatever your reasons. Whatever your stories. We’d love to hear them. They don’t have to be long- a few sentences will do. You will find some examples of what others have written at the bottom of this webpage.

Just pop then in an email and send them to anne@greencurtaintheatre.co.uk . by December 10th 2024.

All your emails will be read by members of the project team and will form the basis of our production. We may use the whole of your piece, extract a sentence from it or just use the idea. It would be very helpful if you could include a phone number so that a member of the project team can contact you if we need to.

ll the information in your email will be treated confidentially and your name will not be published without your consent.