Questions of war

As he waited in a Derry barracks to be sent to his death in the first World War, poet Francis Ledwidge grappled with political dilemmas that are still echoing today, playwright Dave Duggan tells JANE COYLE

IN HIS introduction to Francis Ledwidge: Selected Poems, edited by Dermot Bolger, Seamus Heaney writes that Ledwidge "chose not to bury his head in local sand and, as a consequence, faced the choices and moral challenges of his times with solitude, honesty and rare courage". Conflicting loyalties and moral challenges form the basis of Still, the Blackbird Sings: Incidents at Ebrington Barracks, a new play by Waterford-born writer Dave Duggan, commissioned by Derry Playhouse.

Ledwidge, sometimes known as “the poet of the blackbirds”, was killed in July 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele while serving with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

The play premieres at Derry Playhouse tonight and will then go on tour before returning to the very place which inspired it.

“Ledwidge was stationed in Ebrington Barracks for about six months, from May/June to December 1916,” explains Duggan. “He was in a company which had already served in two campaigns in Gallipoli and was about to be sent into the horrors of the Western Front. They were seasoned campaigners, exactly the kind of men the British needed for one final push. The result, as we now know, of course, was an atrocious loss of human life.

“The barracks is currently undergoing a major transformation into an arts centre. I find it fascinating that this play about a soldier poet is to be staged in the same place where he was based.”

Born near Slane in 1891, Ledwidge came from humble peasant beginnings. He left school at the age of 12 and worked as a farm labourer, a road mender and a copper miner, rising to become a trade union official. From boyhood he was an avid reader, borrowing books from his teachers and immersing himself in the power of the written word. A charismatic, romantic figure, never afraid to speak his mind, he began writing his own poems, many in lyrical verse, about the beautiful, history-soaked landscape around the Hill of Tara, where he grew up. They were published in the Drogheda Independentnewspaper, turning the young Ledwidge into a local celebrity. He secured the patronage of Lord Dunsany, who allowed him access to the library of Dunsany Castle and, subsequently, a writing space.

Duggan has long been an admirer of the man and his poetry and hopes that the new play will encourage people to visit, or revisit, his work.

"I feel as though Ledwidge has always been with me," he says. "In 1997, I wrote a radio talk for RTÉ's Sunday Miscellanyprogramme after visiting his grave in Belgium. Then, in 2002, I wrote a radio drama about him. He is a significant historical figure, a vivacious character who wrote fine romantic and lyrical poetry, as well as poems about his active service. Within his small rural community, he would have been the kind of fellow who would have turned heads, prompting remarks like 'there's yer man, Ledwidge' or, equally, 'he's a bloody pain in the neck'. He certainly had considerable personal presence, and when he spoke, people listened.

“The Ledwidge character in the play is a piece of dramatic fiction, drawn from myth, history and lore. His memory is still very much alive in Derry. I’ve talked to people who said their aunt or their grand-aunt walked out with him, I’ve heard stories of him strolling around the streets of the town and along the Foyle. One of the pleasures of writing the play has been the opportunity to draw on information provided by living people.”

WHILE THE ACTIONof the play takes place almost a century ago, Duggan, writer of the Oscar-nominated film, Dance Lexie Dance, focuses on the apposite connections with the political situation in Ireland today.

“Irish nationalists joined the British army during the first World War because a carrot was dangled in front of them in the form of the promise of Home Rule,” he says. “They wanted to prove themselves capable of looking after their own country in the face of German aggression. They joined fellow countrymen of a unionist persuasion in a tense resolve, aimed at achieving unity and justice in Europe and a future for Ireland. But at the same time as Home Rule was being offered, a pledge was made to the Ulster regiments that Ireland would always remain within the United Kingdom. For a deep thinker and a committed nationalist like Ledwidge, these mixed messages proved extremely problematic and he grappled with the difficulty of squaring the circles.”

In 1916, two pivotal events further sharpened his dilemma: the Easter Rising (in April) and the Battle of the Somme (July). A central question asked by the play is how one can be an Irish patriot in a British uniform. It is left to Ledwidge, considered a hugely important figure by his commanding officers, to work out whether he should stay in the army or desert.

“These are the kind of moral questions that echo right through history and into our own time”, says Duggan. “Should we continue when it is unclear what we are fighting for? Is it right to assert that we are fighting for freedom when the people we are fighting for are, at best, ambivalent?

“There was – and is – the question of power. Is it held in England or Ireland? If in Ireland, who holds it? These men questioned whether it was their place to honour the heroes of the Somme or to stand by the Easter martyrs.

“The recent policing and justice negotiations at Hillsborough lasted almost two weeks. But Ledwidge and his squad had six months at Ebrington, wrestling with different versions of the same debate. And at Hillsborough, nobody went to war and no poets were shot.”

Still, the Blackbird Sings . . .opens at the Playhouse, Derry tonight, then tours to Project, Dublin (Mar 1-6); Ballybofey, Co Donegal; Belfast; and Ebrington Barracks, Derry