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Women’s Podcast: ‘I’ve worked on projects where children were hungry… it’s not on’

Veronica Dyas and Tara Flynn on making the personal political in their theatre

Veronica Dyas. Photograph: Luca Truffarelli

Jennifer Ryan
Mon Feb 26 2018 - 18:50

“I just can’t see how in this day and age, when they’re telling us that the recession is over, we have this homelessness crisis that is growing every day,” says theatre maker Veronica Dyas.

As part of her work, she often works with youth and community organisations in inner city Dublin, and other areas that are still feeling the impact of austerity measures introduced after the economic crash in 2008.

“I’ve worked on projects where children were hungry and that’s just not on in Ireland. It does not make sense,” she tells Kathy Sheridan on the latest episode of the Women’s Podcast.

For her most recent work, Dyas has drawn on these themes and on her personal experience with financial difficulty to examine generations of social housing policy in Ireland.

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At the centre of the piece, called Here and Now (I Live Here Now), is her 35-day journey along the Camino de Santiago and the profound effect it had on her life.

It forms part of the THISISPOPBABY programme running in this year's St Patrick's Festival, Where We Live (at the Complex, Smithfield, Dublin from 6-18 March).

Also on the bill will be comedian and actor Tara Flynn's piece about abortion, Not A Funny Word.

“There’s a lot to pick apart with humour and then there are parts of it that aren’t funny at all,” Flynn tells Kathy Sheridan.

“I really want to visit the humanity. So I try to do all of that. In an hour.”

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