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OPINION:MY FIRST play, Long Black Coat, staged by Bickerstaffe in Kilkenny 15 years ago, was about fatherhood, though I was childless at the time. It was a dialogue between “Jody”, the father of a boy he didn’t see, and “Old Man”, Jody’s father, about how this situation came about. The characters were invented, but the play was based on things I had become aware were happening around me. For some years, I had been meeting men like Jody, who had children they hardly ever saw, as a result of decisions made in family law courts.

One such man had been married with children, of whom he had been the primary carer until his wife announced that she was “bored” with him and he was ordered to leave his home and the presence of his beloved children. A DIY fetishist, he would describe to me in loving detail how he had built the house he was now refused permission to enter. He lived in a bedsit and at the weekends was allowed to take his children out for a few hours. He would beep outside and wait, being forbidden to go inside the gate.