I found this tonight. It’s the closing speech from Lost Voices, Ballyfermot Festival’s 1916 centenary production, in collabration with the now sadly defunct Ballyfermot Theatre Workshop. The play was based on Joe Duffy’s book Children of the rising.
I read recently that some private company has spent over six hundred million buying up property in Ireland. mostly residential. I can’t help wondering how much of that property will end up being rented by the government for use as social housing. This is something that’s been on my mind since I got my own eviction notice. The house was bought by a company that didn’t exist a few months before they bought the house. There’s a list of companies involved, and it looks like they own each other.
Anyway, because of the housing situation in Dublin, I qualify for a thing called Homeless HAP, basically a higher form of rent subsidy for people at risk of homelessness. Out of curiosity I looked up the cost of a mortgage and discovered that on a one bedroom apartment, the repayments on a mortgage are less than the government currently pay in rent. That’s not to suggest the government should simply buy apartments and hand them over, but if they were to buy apartments, and give people a life interest in them, paying for the upkeep and what-not, it could do a lot of good. Yes, some people would take unfair advantage of the situation, but more would use it as a stepping stone to a better life.
Makes you wonder what’s going on.
I have just over two weeks left, let’s see how it works out.
I thought it might be useful to chart the journey of a poem from first draft to abandonment. The poem I’ve chosen is as yet untitled. It’s a record of a happening (man!) out side the church in the photo. For those interested, the church is on Dawson Street in Dublin.
So here it is!
Untitled
An old Priest begging with sexy
Tunes bouncing from a speaker
Behind. He taps out the rhythm against
The side of his money box. His foot
Beats a different song
While his eyes remember.
The wait is almost over. On the 20th and 21st of February the most burning question of the 20th Century will finally be answered. Why didn’t Godot show up? Two lifelong pals, Godot and Bosco, attempt to go on a roadtrip.
From the first time I heard the story of Waiting for Godot I wondered why he didn’t turn up. That’s basically the end of the similarities between my play and the other one, (I haven’t seen it so who knows? Not I!) About a year ago I started to write the story. I could picture these two guys on their way somewhere, and I knew they didn’t get there. Godot and Bosco – Godot, because he’s always late, or never turns up at all; Bosco, because he’s really annoying but people love him.
Anyway, I wrote it as a movie for the Dublin Filmmakers Collective One Year Challenge, but not knowing enough about directing, and not finding anyone else to direct it, I turned it into a play. Paul Winters, who directed my last play, Examine Your Zip, submitted it to scene + heard, and that settled that, more or less.
You can get tickets here.
The Dublin Filmmakers Collective Youtube channel is here.
And my Amazon page is here.
