TAKING IN almost a score of venues and staging on The Rising’s anniversary at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (ironically St George’s day), ‘Madame de Markievicz on Trial’ comes to Kilmallock. This Saturday 19, 8pm at Friars’ Gate is our chance to see historian Ann Matthews’ edition of the Countess’s trial for killing a policeman, Michael Lahiff of County Clare.
As with Matthews first play, ‘Lock Out’, inspired by the events of 1913’s workers’ strike as remembered through her grandmother, ‘Madame de Markievicz on Trial’ is rooted in fact issued through a female principal. The Countess (Barbara Dempsey) steps from and back to her prison cell from where she is tried. She narrates the run of events to the jury, who is one with the audience.
There are six actors and seven characters, only one of whom is fictional, prosecuting barrister William May (Neil Fleming).
“He is the conduit through which the whole story unfolds. He probes. He questions. It is all told in their words”, with due regard to Matthews’ ability to write dialogue, “which was a discovery. I’ve written history books, I have written a Phd. It was an amazing discovery to find I could write dialogue”.
Her previous play was espoused by New Theatre’s artistic director Anthony Fox, as is ‘Madame’. There is a third in the offing, to be set in 1936 and making up an Irish historical trilogy. What are the politics of this 2016/7 centenary play on Madame?
“Well, I’m not in this world to do [Countess Markievicz] any favours. I am a historian here to record the world as I uncover it. This row about whether she killed the policeman went back and over between her friends”. Matthews the playwright believes firmly that people who have a romantic perception of the aristocratic rebel do not like her work.
Sub-poena’d to witness were Markiewicz’ friends Dr Kathleen Lynn and trade unionist William O’Brien, then relatives of the RIC man, and others.
For 90 minutes, we hear the case out, the witnesses in open discussion, and the words of Madame de Markievicz gleaned from her many speeches invoking a new Ireland.
