In 2016 to commemorate the centenerary we staged six plays which told the stories of Irish men and women came to Great Britain in the hundred years since the Easter Rising of 1916. Below are some stills that we took of the productions and some links to the historical context of each play.

Body and Blood by Lorraine Mullaney.
Click here to read about the practice of arranged marriages in Ireland as told by the writer Lorraine Mullaney.

 

Crows by Day, Jackals by Night by Maureen Alcorn
This play was about the lives of those who joined the British Forces to fight in the Second World War as the writer’s father did when he left Donegal to join the RAF.
Click here to read the historical context of the play

Just Above Dogs by Anne Curtis
The saying that the ‘Irish built Britain’ has a great deal of truth in it and work on the building sites of the UK became a lifeline for the many unemployed men in Ireland.
Click here to read the historical context of the play

The Importance of Being by Anne Curtis
This play takes as its theme ‘the sadness of a, Irish woman whose child was taken from her for adoption by the State.
Click here to read the historical context of the play

 

Traitors, Cads and Cowards by Martin McNamara
A number of republican volunteers deported from Ireland following the Easter Rising were housed in Wandsworth Prison in south London prior to taking part in the Sankey Enquiry. This play imagines what might have happened when an Irish volunteer was bunked up with a deserter from the British Army and a conscientious objector. 
Click here to read the historical context of the play

 

Women’s Work by Anna May Mangan
This play reflects on how diaspora, identity and dementia affected the lives of three women from the Irish diaspora as Easter 2016 approaches.
Click here to read the historical context of the play