Win tickets for A Stór Mo Chroí

If you were to ask me  to put together a folk/trad line-up of my favourite artists, then I would probably come up with the same one that will be on the stage of the MAC on Monday night in A Stór Mo Chroí – A Musical Gathering.

The duo that make up Lumiere is probably one of the bands I’ve seen most in the past couple of years but with Éilis Kennedy and Pauline Scanlon the singers accompanied by guitarist Donogh Hennessy, it’s easy to see why.

I’ve seen them at an Droichead in south Belfast, at the Cultúrlann in Derry and somewhere else out in the sticks. I’ve even been to John Benny’s pub in Danigean Uí Chúis aka Dingle, a great bar owned by Éilis’s husband.

Not only has the duo sweet, strong voices but they choose their material meticulously, be it in Irish or English, traditional or modern and deliver every one of them with controlled passion.
John-SpillaneSomeone else I’ve seen on numerous occasions is John Spillane. Again, I’ve been happy to travel to see the Corkman in action, Dungiven being the last place I saw him.

It’s impossible not to like John’s songs some of which would be in The Great Irish Song Book, if there were such a thing, the likes of Magic Nights in the Lobby Bar, Dance of The Cherry Tree, Passage West and all those songs in Irish we learned at school or in the Gaeltacht.

Not only is John a great singer/songwriter but there are few people with a better rapport with an audience than he.

And what about Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh? I remember seeing Muireann when she had just joined the group Danú who were Muireannplaying in the Lyric Theatre – as were John Spillane and Louis de Paor – and I was entranced like everyone else by her singing of those great, noble Munster songs that are at the heart of our cultural wealth.

And then there’s Mary Dillon, one of Irish music’s best kept secrets – though I think that’s how Mary prefers it!

Mary has just emerged from the mist that covers the Glenshane Pass near her native Dungiven with a stunning EP named after a song by Kate Bush, Army Dreamers as well as the Bruce Springsteen song, Streets of Philadelphia.

That was followed by an equally brilliant album called  North, which features mostly traditional songs – and one composed by Mary herself.

Last but not least, we have Dónal O’Connor and John McSherry. Wherever you are at a great session, it’s likely one of these boys will be in the thick of the action.

They encapsulate that old sentiment about modernity needing to respect the tradition.

Anyway, this cornucopia of talent will be on the stage of the MAC in Belfast on Monday night in a show called A Stór Mo Chroí. 

It’s not, as the title suggests, a night of love songs as Pauline Scanlon explained to me.

A Stór Mo Chroí started off as the brainchild of Colm Ó Síocháin who runs the fabulous Celtic Note record shop in Nassau Street in Dublin (celticnote.com), and he put together a compilation of love songs called ‘A Stór Mo Chroí’, brought the concept to us and now to the stage.

“It’s not exclusively love songs, that would work on a CD but I don’t think you could inflict that on an audience!” she says, laughing.

“The importance is ‘A Stór Mo Chroí is that the participants are all lovely, we all sing lovely songs, but the craic on the stage is brilliant. It’s just good fun.

“For the one in Belfast, unfortunately Karan Casey can’t make thar one, so we have the lovely Mary Dillon to do it – and she’s just amazing.”

And now the moment you’ve all being waiting for….

I have a pair of tickets for the gig which a lucky reader can win by answering this question:

Where is the Celtic Note record shop?

Send your answers to robert@robertmcmillen.ie by 3pm tomorrow (Sunday 19 October 2014) and I’ll announce the winner by 6pm. If you don’t get an e-mail, you haven’t won! Now go for it.

 

 

Armagh Artists at the Duncairn Centre

A print by Lorcan Vallely and Stephen Farnan

Wednesday, 1 October sees the launch of an exhibition of new work from two artists originally from Armagh, Lorcan Vallely and Stephen Farnan, at the beautiful new Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts in north Belfast.

Lorcan Vallely
Lorcan Vallely

Lorcan Vallely, who has recently moved back to Armagh and set up studio in the city, studied fine art at Bath School of Art, then Chelsea College of Art and has been working as a full time artist throughout the ten years since. He has developed a unique, distinctive style through his use of charcoal and oil on canvas and this exhibition showcases new work in these media, created in 2014.

Stephen Farnan
Stephen Farnan

Stephen Farnan is a Belfast based potter who combines his ceramic and artistic practice to create unique porcelain landscapes, etchings and pottery. From his Belfast studio Stephen develops his pencil studies which are then incorporated into much of his original work in clay, whether it’s functional pots, or porcelain artworks.

Contrasting styles and methods can be viewed in the canvases and ceramics of the two Armagh artists, but a central thread of drawing runs through both sets of work, in this their first joint exhibition in Belfast.

Located at Duncairn Avenue on the Antrim Road, The Duncairn Centre for Culture & Arts is North Belfast’s first purpose built Arts and Culture shared space venue. The new £3.5million facility will provides a world-class facility including art studios, exhibition area, community meeting room, theatre, café and conference rooms.

The exhibition runs from the 29th September to the 11th October (9am-5pm) and the launch is at 6pm on Wednesday the 1st October.

Seirbhís úr nuachta ó RTÉ

Seo an preasráiteas a chuir RTÉ amach faoin tseirbhís úr nuachta Gaeilge:

Nuacht 3

 

Amárach, cuirfear tús le ré nua i gcúrsaí nuachta in RTÉ, le seirbhís chuimsitheach nuachta ar-líne i nGaeilge den chéad uair, agus atheagar ar an nuacht Ghaeilge ar an raidió a fhágfaidh gur ó RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta i gCasla i gcroílár na Gaeltachta a chraolfar na feasacháin uilig ar Raidió RTÉ feasta.

Ón Luan 15 Meán Fómhair, beidh seirbhís chuimsitheach nuachta ar-líne i nGaeilge ag RTÉ den chéad uair, idir nuacht náisiúnta, idirnáisiúnta agus áitiúil.  Beidh sé le fáil ar shuíomh idirlín na nuachta ag RTÉ.ie, agus ar Aip RTÉ News Now.  Comhoibriú atá sa togra seo idir Nuacht RTÉ agus seomraí nuachta RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.  Is i Nuacht RTÉ i mBaile na hAbhann a bheidh an tseirbhís nua ar-líne lonnaithe, agus beidh iriseoirí ó RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta agus ó Nuacht RTÉ ag coinneáil ábhair leis.  Beidh an tseirbhís nua ar-líne le fáil ó lár na maidine Dé Luain.

Cuirfidh na forbairtí seo leis an tseirbhís a chuirtear ar fáil do phobal na Gaeltachta agus do phobal na Gaeilge tré chéile, agus fáilteoidh foghlaimeoirí Gaeilge agus muintir na hÉireann thar lear roimhe freisin.  Fágfaidh an t-atheagar go bhfuil úsáid níos fearr agus níos éifeachtaí á bhaint as na hacmhainní atá ag an gcraoltóir náisiúnta, agus cuideoidh sé leis na hiarrachtaí leanúnacha atá ar bun le costaisí a laghdú san eagraíocht.

Beidh an nuacht náisiúnta agus idirnáisiúnta Gaeilge anois á soláthar do sheirbhísí uile Raidió RTÉ ag RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.  Is i gceanncheathrú na seirbhíse i gCasla a bheidh an lárionad léirithe raidió don nuacht Ghaeilge, agus is as sin feasta a chraolfar an 32 feasachán nuachta Gaeilge sa tseachtain ar RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ lyric fm agus RTÉ 2fm, chomh maith le gnáthsheirbhís nuachta Raidió na Gaeltachta mar atá faoi láthair.

D’fháiltigh Príomh Stiúrthóir RTÉ Noel Curran roimh an atheagar: “Dul chun cinn tábhachtach atá anseo, a chruthaíonn an chéad togra ilmheáin i nGaeilge a bheidh ag feidhmiú ó dhá láthair éagsúil.  Bainfidh sé leas níos fearr as na hacmhainní atá againn faoi láthair le cur leis an tseirbhís a chuirtear ar fáil don phobal.  Léiriú atá anseo go bhfuil RTÉ tiomanta don Ghaeilge, mar a léirigh an feasachán nua Gaeilge ar RTÉ News Now a chuirfidh 26 uair an chloig sa bhreis leis an soláthar nuachta Gaeilge in aghaidh na bliana.

Tá na réigiúin taobh amuigh de Bhaile Átha Cliath lárnach do dhualgas seirbhís poiblí RTÉ, agus tagann an fógra seo sna sála ar oscailt an stiúideo réigiúnach nua in IT Bhaile Áth Luain, agus roimhe sin arís stiúideonna i bPort Láirge agus i nDún Dealgan.  Molaim na baill foirne ar fad atá páirteach sna forbairtí seo, mar is a bhuíochas leo siúd go bhfuil sé ar chumas RTÉ an leibhéal seirbhíse atá againn a choinneáil, agus fiú cur leis, ó thaobh clúdach áitiúil agus seirbhísí Gaeilge de, ag tráth go bhfuil brú ollmhór ar acmhainní.”

Seolfaidh Príomh Stiúrthóir RTÉ Noel Curran an t-atheagar ar sheirbhísí nuachta Raidió, agus an tseirbhís nua ar-líne, go hoifigiúil i gCeannáras RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta i gCasla Dé Céadaoin 17 Meán Fómhair.

Open House, Bangor

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside, Oh I do like to be beside the sea …

Bangor on the north Down coast has turned into Festival City, with something exciting happening nearly every weekend for the past month and arguably, the best of the bunch still to come thanks to the Open House Festival.

While nostalgia might lead you to think that Bangor was founded at the same time as the Pickie Pool, but the town has a hugely important Christian heritage going back a millennium and a half.

it was in Bangor Abbey that the Irish monks who went on to re-Christianise Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire were educated and that same missionary zeal is shown by husband and wife team, Kieran Gilmore and Alison Gordon who have brought some amazing music to the town.

Indeed many of the gigs are held in Bangor Abbey.

“I don’t know whether it was built for singing as well as worshipping – Church of Ireland – but the acoustics are amazing in it,” says Kieran.
“We don’t really need a PA but we do have one, just to lift it because, for example, we had Paul Brady there last year and the Staves – they were amazing.
“I guess for us it represents a very important part of Bangor’s history going back a long, long way, while Irish speaking monks would have been the inhabitants so we like that historical connection.”

The town of course has changed since the times of Saints Columbanus, Gall and Comgall, and has seen better times but Kieran and Alison want to show all that is positive about Bangor.

“We don’t want to gloss over any cracks but there are a lot of great things about the town,” says Kieran.

“People have been running it down for a long time, people from here. And the idea behind the festival is to start to try and get people talking it up again. Because of places like Bangor Abbey which is a class venue to have concerts, the Walled Garden, another absolutely beautiful venue – that I think lay dormant, underused, covered in weeds for 30-40 years until a couple of years ago the council took it over and spent a couple of years and quite a lot of money doing it up.”

With Bangor putting its best foot forward, Open House has stepped up to the mark with a great line-up of music coming up until the end of the month.

Top of the list is a kind of homecoming gig for the raw talent that is Foy Vance.

“Yea, we’re absolutely delighted to have Foy back in town,” enthuses Kieran. “Both nights, 25/26 August, are sold out, which is great and I think he’s going to have full band, a string quartet and backing vocalists for it because he himself is really chuffed about it.

“It’s a big thing to come to town, it’s 800 tickets, that’s a lot. The second one sold out six weeks before the show. We could have probably, on the night, could have done the four. He probably could have sold another two, because the last six weeks is when we sell most of the tickets.”

Another favourite of mine is Eddi Reader who apart from being a great singer, whether she’s paying tribute to Robbie Burns or Eddisinging other Scottish anthems or more contemporary stuff. She also has a great rapport with the audience too. Eddi will be in Bangor Abbey on Wednesday, 27 August.

What else do I recommend?

Bonny “Prince” Billy, is quite eclectic. He has bog-all online presence, no Facebook, no website and he’s very hard to track down, yet for all the hipsters (ahem!) they were more interested in that gig than anything.(Bangor Abbey, 28 August)

Altan – playing in Bangor Abbey it will be great, acoustically with everyone able to hear each of the hugely talented musicians as well as Mairéad’s wonderful voice. (Bangor Abbey, 30 August)

Lloyd ColeLloyd Cole has just finished a six-week tour of New Zealand and is very busy. And he plays golf.            Everywhere he goes, he tried to play a round a golf and he’s written reviews for the courses. I think his parents were golf teachers or something – who’da thunk it? (Bangor Abbey, Friday 29 August)

Another great idea Kieran, Alison and others have comy is Culture Day happening in the town next Saturday, 23 August.

“Culture Day is a snapshot of what’s happened in Bangor and what we hope will happen in Bangor in the future,” explains Kieran.

“There is a lot going on and a lot of it is bubbling away under the surface. There are a lot of visual artists here in Bangor and lots of people just quietly getting on doing their own things – look at the screen printers for example. A lot of musicians, I don’t know whether it’s the seaside or whatever. The first year we did five nights in the Goat’s Toe, and everyone thought we had moved the festival lock, stock and barrel to the Goat’s Toe, to Bangor. But it was just five Friday nights in August consecutively and three bands each night, and it was £5 in and it was brilliant — which led to last year being the proper pilot, I guess.

“The amount of people that approached us – flip me – we had no idea how many talented, really creative people – but they’re maybe not professional or they’re getting on doing their own things – I mean there’s an exhibition in Bangor nearly every week. “A slight exaggeration maybe, but there’s the kind of same principle – it feels like the start of the Cathedral Quarter 15 years ago, you know?

“There’s a movement there and there’s an energy and you can just detect it from people and just going forward they want Bangor to work, and people are just going “I’m fed up with it being run-down” and it’s not perfect and no place will ever be, and no art scene and no culture scene will ever be perfect, and yes we are only 15 minutes from Belfast, but people are definitely tapping into something.
“We’re trying to encourage people to come up with ideas for events and we’re saying to them we’ll put it in the programme, we’ll help you market it, we’ll help you sell tickets, we’ll help you run it if you’re not sure as long as the standard’s good, but we’re saying try and make it unique to Bangor.

“We really feel like we’re part of something.”

These are just some of the events coming up but you can get full tickers and order tickets from openhousefesival.com

 

Walking Towards a Song

I like quizzes. My field of knowledge might not be very deep but it is quite wide. I know things others amongst of my peers aren’t remotely interested in which earns me looks of admiration during University Challenge or at the pub quizzes I used to go to.

The Scór is a competition run by the GAA and I’ve had great fun taking part in those but years ago I also appeared on RTÉ radio on their Irish language quiz show hosted by Cathal Pórtéir.

On the team with me was Pól Mac Fheilimidh and Diarmaid Ó Tuama.

We managed to gwt through a couple of preliminary rounds to reach the final and took the train to Dublin before heading to the RTÉ studios in Donntbrook where we were severely trounced at the final hurdle by a much more knowledgeable team.

It is in no way a mitigating circumstance that we had decided to walk to D4 from Connolly Station, stopping on the way at an unremembered number of hostelries for some liquid refreshment. It was a lovely sunny day and the craic was similar to that on the Isle of Man as we burrowed through the work of Myles na Gopaleen, recalled Dublin GAA greats and every dirty foul ever commiteed by the Boys in Blue (with special reference to Kieran Duff)  and pondered the capital cities of Namibia, Colombia and Kasakhstan in case they would come up. (Windhoek, Bogotá and Astana if you must know)

I remember at one stage, stopping to merrily sing a song because the street sign jumped out at me and demanded I sing its name. However, Luke Kelly does a much better job.

Take it away, Luke ….

Eastside Arts Festival

There has long been the impression that the north’s Protestants don’t do the arts. It is patently untrue as Eastside Arts festival in East Belfast is about to prove.

To my casual eye, it seems that Eastside have got it just right.

The most successful festivals manage a perfect mixture of the local and the global, old and new, and it must have the right mix of sheer entertainment and events that are more thought-provoking.

Many of the east Belfast events are happening in Orangefield High School and many of the perfomers are either ex-pupils or even teachers.

The school is the alma mater of global superstar Van Morrison and the local boy will be doing a couple of shows in his former assembly room. This will surely be more than a concert, but a heady celebration of what the Irish call dúchas, that sense of place and belonging.

Oh, and great uplifting music too from Van the Man on August 22 and 23.

Playwright  Marie Jones is another past pupil of Orangefield with a world-wide reputation. She’ll be back at the school on Monday 25 August to talk about her career with Dan Gordon and there will be performances from a selection of her plays such as Stones in his Pockets and Women on the verge of HRT.

Another of her plays is A Night in November which dealt with the thorny subject of sectarianism and Eastside Arts Festival isn’t shying away from difficult subjects. The recognise that it is a fundamental job of the arts to provoke and to make people think about their lives and the society they live in.

The festival will feature a rehearsed reading of Stewart Parker’s play Pentecost, which deals with the Ulster Workers Strike; a Love Music, Hate Racism day at the Strand Arts Centre and a screening of the classic film. To Kill  A Mockingbird which deals with racism and class through the eyes of a six year old girl.

The organisers are also keen to reach out beyond the geographic boundaries of the east. There will be a film featuring the last PUP Leader David Ervine and Sinn Féin councillor Tom Hartley as they visit war graves in memory of the Battle of the Somme while Dubliner Anthony Cronin will read his epic poem, RMS Titanic – which  many consider the definitive artistic memorial to the ill-fated ship – accompanied by folk legend Dónal Lunny at the wonderful Strand Arts Centre.  The show is being staged in partnership with Féile an Phobail.

However, most of all Eastside is going to be about fun with loads of great music from Kaz Hawkins, the Belfast Big Swing Band playing songs and tunes of WWI and WWII, family events and the heartwarming film about East Belfast’s rebel son, Terry Hooley.

Eastside Arts Festival runs from August 22-25  and you can get more information at eastsidearts.net

Paula Leyden at Kells

Author Paula Leyden

One of the great things about literary festivals such as the Hay Festival here in Kells is the serendipity of it all, heading into the unknown and finding something wonderful.

It’s great when yo listen to someone and don’t want them to stop.

The name Paula Leyden was in my mind somewhere like a tree you pass in a train but there was no time to take it in.

Paula was born in Kenya, moved to South Africa and then to Zamia and back in 1973 to spend a lot of her adult life in South Africa. She says she was shocked by what she saw in SA and got involved in anti-Apartheid politics there. She also worked for a Rape Crisis Centre and for a group called Lawyers for Human Rights. and she regularly travels around bookshops, libraries and schools discussing human rights issues)

In 1993, she moved to Ireland and has been raising horses in Kilkenny, and after becoming part of a writers’ club, sent a novel to a publisher, who much to her suprise, took it up.

At the Iona Hall in Kells she spoke about her childrens’ books. Set in Zambia, they were full of magic realism and tackled dofficult subjects such as child marraige and HIV/Aids which she talks about to chlidren – whom she says find them really funny and Paula has that gift of expressing gritty reality with humour and magic without taking away from its horror.

With an audience containing young children she decided not to read a story of hers set on death row in a South African prison but her stories are full of storeis from her own esxperiences.

She knew a real snake man like Ifwafwa in The Butterfly Heart. (Zambisa is butterfly-shaped, she says.)

Paula Leyden's latest books
Paula Leyden’s latest books

A neighbour in Zambia came to her house and asked her father to get kill  a cobra which was under her kitchen table. He beleived that it wasn’t right to kill animals so he went and got the snake man who happened to be in prison.

The guard however let him out on cindition Paula’s father would return him directly to prison. After the snake man had the cobra saftely in a serge bad, Peter Leyden returned him to prison – but the snake man had another request. He wanted to keep the cobra as a pet. As the prison guards knew that he could handle the snake and it in turn would keep the rat population down, he was allowed to keep it!

After a while, however, the snake man stopped “milking” the cobra, ie taking its poison out because the snake was his friend – with inevitably tragic consequences.

Paula, who lived in the north for a while, also spent time working on the Truth and Reconiliaiton Committee in South Africa – lots of reconciliation but not enough truth, she said but thought that one could be useful in the north.

You can find out more about Paula Leyden at Walker Books.

Hay at Kells and Aonach Tailteann

Boinn Tailteann

In half an hour I’m heading off to Teltown, a placename that seems to come right out of a children’s story book or a TV cartoon for under-5s.

This particular Teltown, however, is in County Meath, near Kells where a satellite of the literature festival heid in Hay-on-Wye  is running until Sunday.

But if we send our imaginations to the same spot 4,000 years ago, we will see a very different place and a site of huge importance as it was there that the Aonach Tailteann was held to celebrate the feast of Lughasa two millennia before the birth of Christ.

The Gaels would have known the site as Tailteann, named after the learned daughter of the king of Spain  and there is a ring fort there which goes back to 2000BC.

Tailtiu was the learned daughter of Mag Mor, a distinguished king of Spain, and married to the last great Fir Bolg king, Eochaid mac Eirc, who named his palace after her,

Meath Tourism takes up the story: “Queen Tailtiu took the trouble to select a particular spot in which she wished to be buried. It was located on the side of a hill, covered with dense forest; but because of its sunlit and beautiful situation she had chosen it, and her husband, in compliance with her wishes, had it cleared of the timber. It took a host of stalwart men nearly a year to accomplish the task.

On her deathbed, Queen Tailtiu asked that funeral games be held annually on the cleared ground.

“As a national institution the Aonach fulfilled three important public functions in the lives of the people. Its first object was, to do honour to the illustrious dead; secondly, to promulgate laws; and, finally, to entertain the people. Presiding at the Tailtiu assembly or fair became the prerogative of the king of Tara.”

The games consisted of hurling, athletic, gymnastic and equestrian contests of various kinds, and included running, long-jumping, high-jumping, quoit-throwing, spear-casting, sword and-shield contests, wrestling, boxing, handball, swimming, horse-racing, chariot-racing, spear or pole jumping, slinging contests, bow-and-arrow exhibitions and, in fact, every sort of contest exhibiting physical endurance and skill.

“In addition, there were literary, musical, oratorical, and story-telling competitions; singing and dancing competitions, and tournaments of all kinds. Also, competitions for goldsmiths, jewellers, and artificers in the precious metals; for spinners, weavers and dyers; and the makers of shields and weapons of war. The fair lasted for a fortnight.

Cluichí Tailteann – the Tailteann games were revived on three occasions in 1924, 1928 and 1932 but haven’t been attempted since and there has been a cycle race called Rás Tailteann (although nowadays it’s called the An Post Rás.

So I am off to Tailtin,where people attending the Aonach would have stayed 4,000 years ago. The Hay Festival at Kells, less than five miles away will undoubtedly be very interesting and enjoyable – let’s see if matches the excitement of Aonach Tailteann!

You can read all about the Tailteann Games at https://archive.org/details/aonactailteannta00nalliala

Can’t Forget About You … or David Ireland

I was at David Ireland’s uproarious play Can’t Forget About You at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast on Thursday night and it was even better the second time around.

The audience, which included comedienne Victoria Wood, were rolling in the aisles in a story where Stevie (Declan Rodgers), a 25-year-old Belfast boy falls in love with a Glaswegian widow twice his age, Martha, played by Karen Dunbar)

If that wasn’t problematic enough, Stevie is from a staunchly  Protestant family. His mother  Dorothy (Carol Moore) is a devout church-goer who lost her RUC husband to the IRA during the troubles and his sister is a died-in-the-wool Ulster Scots spouting loyalist, Rebecca (Abigail McGibbon) who is divorced from her husband and is left with a son, Paisley.

But this is no Hole in the Wall Gang show. The displays of naked sectarianism are side-splittingly funny – until you start thinking that what is being said is really nasty – the lazy hatred of themuns, the darkness behind the piety of ordinary people with an extraordinary distrust of their neighbours.

David Ireland draws these contrary aspects of life here to our attention in one subversively hilarious scene after another and he is well served by  a perfect cast but you sometimes feel guilty about your laughter because there is so much grief and loss in the play on top of  issues of cultural identity and sectarianism that unforgiveably get in the way of us establishing positive, decent human interaction and relationships. 

But people here are like people everywhere. The human condition has made its way to Belfast. We fall in love, we marry, we shop, we divorce like elsewhere. We even have sex. Who’da thunk it?

Karen Dunbar is particularly good as the Scottish widow Martha, vulnearable, strong when needs be and a flawless mirror to the dysfunctional society we live in here.

Can’t Forget About You is also a great piece of writing and Ireland has used comedy to show the absurdity of life here before.

In the last play of his I saw, Yes So I Said Yes, Ulster Protestants were speaking Irish, Taigs were getting pregnant, there was rape and murder as well as Snuffy, an unemployed loyalist gunman who has no idea wheat is real and what is unreal in the “new Northern Ireland” – and Stephen Nolan. Undurorisingly, people were strongly divided on its merits.

This week, I asked David where his ideas come from.

“I’ve no idea,” was the honest reply.

“In the case of I Said Yes, I was commissioned. I was asked to write a play about a loyalist adjusting to life after the  peace process but I think there’s a certain resistance to that because it’s such a weighty subject matter, you know, it’d be really easy to write a serious drama and also possibly quite a clichéd drama, whereas I felt if you tackled it comedically, you could,  go down a much different road, But, yeah it was quite a strong that reaction that play, which came as quite a surprise to me.” he laughs.

When I spoke to David he was in Edinburgh for an audition himself because as well as a playwright he is also a gifted actor. So has he left the actor’s life behind just to write plays?

Well funny enough, no. The reason I’m in Edinburgh is because I was auditioning for ‘Outlander’, this TV series, American sort of sci-fi time-travelling thing. So, no I still am, it’s a weird thing because I sort of was acting for a while and then I stopped getting any work as an actor and then I started Whiting in order to give myself something to do, and then the writing sort of took off, but once the writing took off, I started getting auditions again as well, so now I sort of have a healthy career as a writer and an actor,” he explains.

I’ve always been interested in why people become playwrights (or songwriters or novelists) so I ask David why he writes plays? Is it because he can? Is it because you can make loads of money? Does he have a message that he wants to put across?

“Well I don’t feel like I have a message I want to get across,” he explains. “To make lots of money would be great, but that doesn’t really happen so much, although in my experience you make more money as a playwright than as an actor.

“But I don’t know, I think it’s just because I think it was always in there. I always enjoyed writing. I think I wanted to be a writer before I wanted to be an actor. At school I did a lot of writing, but I became an actor and then acting became a sort of an addiction so I went down that path, but now I feel very comfortable being a writer. It feels like that’s my real job.

“I became an actor in order to sort of avoid having a proper job, but even being an actor was too much work, it was too much, having to turn up for things and be on time, whereas as a writer you can sort of take your own hours and do whatever you want!”

The creative spark can strike anywhere and the process that led to Can’t Forget About You began on a walk through Belfast.

“Well, it started when I went for the job for the interview as playwright in residence at the Lyric,” says David.

“I really wanted the job and I asked a friend of mine, a very experienced Scottish playwright called Douglas Maxwell, for advice. He was saying to me ‘have an idea for a play in your back pocket in case they ask you if you’ve any ideas’, and I couldn’t think of an idea but as I was walking to the theatre I was listening to some music on my iPod, and this song, ‘Cant Forget About You’ by Nas came on and it seemed, that song just seemed to say everything that I felt about Belfast and everything that I felt about my life at that point, as I was about to leave Belfast.

“I was about to get married and moving to Glasgow, so I sort of felt that if I got this job at the Lyric, this would be my last year in Belfast and I wanted to write a play that said a lot of positive things although like other plays I’ve written there’s a lot of anger in it and there’s a lot of rage in it. So the title of the play is ‘Can’t Forget About You’ because I knew I was going, so I didn’t want to forget Belfast.”

I suggest to David that there is something in our nature that every play we see is about The Troubles. No matter what the play is whether it’s by Shakespeare or Sophocles,  it has to have some resonance about Belfast today, we see everything through the prism of the Troubles. Belfast people can’t forget the past.

“Well that’s the thing, we’re always trying to escape it, yeah, totally,” agrees David. “Because everybody, every character in the play has lost someone and is dealing with loss, and I think that as a society we’re all dealing with loss, so there is that element in it, but I didn’t want to get too heavy with it again. So yeah, I think it is true that a lot of theatre sometimes tries to escape from the shadow of the Troubles, but you can’t actually, I just don’t think we’re ready for that. I think it’s part of what’s shaped us as a society today, so it has to be there even if it’s just in the background.”

So we are all in a sort of very, very slow-working catharsis, I suggest.

“Yeah, I mean it’s funny because the play I’m writing at the minute has nothing to do with Belfast, nothing to do with The Troubles, and I’m writing them for Northern Stage in Newcastle, and I gave the draft to director the other day, and he said, “you do realise this whole play is a whole metaphor for Northern Ireland, even though there’s no mention of Northern Ireland and there’s no characters from Northern Ireland?'”

You can take the man out of Belfast, David …

“I know, I know!”

Can’t Forget About You runs at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast until 5 July.