On the 400th anniversary of the Flight of the Earls, an ambitious tour of Brian Friel's Making History will march from Kinsale to Louvain, writes Denis Conway, who plays Hugh O'Neill
In 1601 Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and his forces marched away from defeat at the battle of Kinsale. Trying, and failing, to regain the initiative in the struggle with Elizabethan England, he eventually sailed away from Ireland in September 1607 to seek help abroad from Spain and the Pope. O'Neill never returned, and we remember his departure as the Flight of the Earls, the symbolic end of Celtic Ireland.
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Flight, we are seeking to recreate this journey with a historically-sited touring production of Brian Friel's play Making History, an exploration of the process of how we create history, and how it differs from reality.
I have always loved Sean O'Faolain's book The Great O'Neill, which presents O'Neill as a tarnished hero, a man whose struggle between personal ambition and moral integrity is captured brilliantly in Brian Friel's play. The Flight of the Earls marks a point in Irish history when the old Gaelic clan system fell apart.
The effects of the Flight and the subsequent Plantation of Ulster have resonated throughout Irish history for 400 years. Set during Elizabeth I's reign, Friel's play sees Hugh O'Neill torn between loyalty to the Queen, who has made him an earl, and loyalty to the Irish people, whose interests might be better served by independence from England, while the archbishop Peter Lombard, who is also writing O'Neill's history, incites him to rebellion, attempting to reshape history as it happens.
As a play about how "official" histories are made and interpreted, it is particularly timely to be staging Friel's play now that political stability has finally been achieved on the island of Ireland.
It has been quite a journey. The 2005 production of Ouroboros's Making History in Dublin, directed by Geoff Gould, with a cast of six including me as Hugh O'Neill, was critically acclaimed, and Sinead Cuthbert won the Irish Times Award for Best Costumes. This success enabled us to approach potential sponsors for a 400th anniversary tour in 2007.
Armed with a map, Geoff and I set out to trace O'Neill's and O'Donnell's journey to Kinsale and O'Neill's subsequent journey from Mellifont Abbey to Rathmullan. Along the route we discovered an incredible number of sites - churches, castles, towers - many of which pre-dated O'Neill's time and which he would have seen as he marched through the country.
We uncovered local connections to O'Donnell and O'Neill and discovered how the history of the Earls still resonates through the country. Luckily many of the sites are now in the care of the OPW and as we met and spoke to the people running them, we were overwhelmed by their unanimous enthusiasm for the project. So what was originally conceived as a tour of campsites, and occasional theatres, developed into something even more interesting as a string of natural venues presented themselves. The preparation paid off, resulting in private sponsorship and support from the inter-departmental government committee for the commemoration of the Flight Of The Earls.
The government committee offered the use of 15 OPW sites along with staff to support the logistics of the performances in each site. As well as these 15, there are another five sites in Northern Ireland and three more in Europe (Culture Ireland has generously supported the overseas tour) giving a total of 25 sites.
The Battle in Kinsale in 1601 was the catalyst which eventually resulted in the Flight of the Earls in September 1607 and so it is apposite that Ouroboros starts the tour tomorrow in Kinsale during Kinsale Arts Week. Other venues (see panel) include Barryscourt Castle in Carrigtouhill, Co Cork, which stood against O'Neill (Sir David Barry, an Anglo-Catholic, observed that Queen Elizabeth had never interfered with the practice of his religion).
O'Neill had fought for Queen Elizabeth when it suited his purpose, including during the Desmond Rebellion, highlighting the point made in the play that O'Neill makes for an uncomfortable hero. The play will be staged in the beautifully restored Desmond Hall in Newcastlewest, Co Limerick.
IN KILMALLOCK, ONE of the largest towns in Munster in O'Neill's time, we hit upon the idea of staging the play in two locations on the same site. We wanted to stage the first half of the play (set in O'Neill's castle and in the Sperrin Mountains) outside and, as the dusk sets and O'Neill's fortunes and freedoms wane, the audience would move inside for the scenes set in Rome. In Kilmallock we'll move from the crumbling 13th century Cistercian abbey into the Friarsgate theatre across the road. This "split-stage" concept will be repeated in as many of the venues as possible, in different ways; where an indoor space is not available, the OPW has provided a marquee. The move from outside to inside, from light to dark, from hope to despair, from Ireland to abroad offers a metaphor for the demise of the Gaelic aristocracy and is a powerful symbol for the heart of the play in those locations where the building itself is crumbling.
Roscrea Castle and Clonmacnoise were on O'Neill's and O'Donnell's separate routes to Kinsale.
Some sites seemed to offer themselves up. For example, after a casual conversation about O'Neill's marriage to Mabel Bagenal (a crucial plot in the play) in Drumcondra castle, we discovered that the room still exists, now part of St. Joseph's School for the Visually Impaired in Drumcondra in Dublin.
O'Neill himself went blind before he died and Ouroboros will perform the play in the hall in St Joseph's, hopefully raising some money for that very deserving place.
Hugh O'Donnell mustered his troops at Ballymote castle in Sligo before the march to Kinsale (he had had the foresight to buy it for 400 cattle). Donegal castle was his stronghold and has also been beautifully restored by the OPW.
O'Neill's eventual departure for Rome began in Mellifont Abbey, Co Louth, where he said goodbye to his old friend Garret More and is also the site of his final submission to Queen Elizabeth. Ironically Elizabeth died the next day, and when he learned of her death a month later it caused him to weep with rage. His arch-enemy Henry Bagenal (Mabel's brother) lived at Bagenal's castle in Newry where O'Neill courted Mabel.
O'Neill's homeplace of Dungannon is on the way to Rathmullan and for the first time in a generation Castle Hill will be opened to the public with a performance of the play in a marquee on the very foundations of O'Neill's castle. Appropriately, the venue was organised by a cross-party committee to commemorate a man who 400 years ago tried to meld two opposing sides: the old Gaelic order and the new Protestant influx of the reformation. He would surely, as O'Faoláin put it in the foreword to The Great O'Neill, "gaze from under his red eyelashes with a chuckle of cynical amusement and amazement".
Maguire, O'Neill's great ally and provider of the ship that eventually took him from Rathmullan, lived in what is now Enniskillen castle. As Maguire is the foil that Friel uses to create the central argument in the play, it is a great honour to be able to use these grounds to perform the play.
A NEW THEATRE, the Strule Arts Centre, is opening this summer in Friel's home town of Omagh and is one of only two venues (the other being the Alley Theatre in Strabane) where Ouroboros will use the set from its recent successful tour of Ulster theatres. We are delighted to perform a very rarely performed Friel play in his "homeplace". Hopefully the great man himself will be able to attend.
The performance in Rathmullan Fort will be in an Irish Army tent. O'Neill the army man would surely be pleased, particularly as the leader of the Irish Armed Forces, President Mary McAleese, will attend.
The Earls went on to Paris and later to Louvain (Leuven) where they stayed until February 1608. Ouroboros will go as far as Louvain for three performances with the intention of completing the tour through Switzerland and on to Rome in the spring of 2008, to arrive in Rome 400 years on.
Some journey.
See www.ouroboros.ie for more details