History
★★★★ - Irish Times
A Public Art Commission to mark the Regeneration of St Michael’s Estate in Inchicore, presented by THEATREclub at Project Arts Centre written, directed and produced by myself and it premiered in December 2013.
From 2011-2013, I worked in St Michael’s Estate writing and developing this piece which was the last chapter in a trilogy of works I had been making about Ireland, shown together and in rep at The Abbey Theatre in 2016, called The Ireland Trilogy.
HISTORY is published by Bloomsbury and available to buy here.
HISTORY is a story about a place. A fourteen acre site in Inchicore called St. Michael’s Estate, and a history that spans the housing of imprisoned 1916 revolutionaries to the building of Ireland’s first social housing in the 1960s.The housing estate and the people who lived there have battled drugs, recession and social exclusion. Yet St. Michael’s has become a hub of activism that is world-renowned for its community development and creative protest. Promised regeneration 4 times in 15 years, the former residents of the old St. Michael’s Estate are still waiting for the homes they’ve been promised.
By telling the unwritten stories of this land, THEATREclub are going to bring you through the last 100 years of our countries social history, so we, the people, can think about what we want to happen next. We want you to know what happened here. We want you to remember. HISTORY is a story about Ireland’s future. Will you walk with us?
It is a commonplace assumption among what we call ‘opinion formers’ that there are no heroes in the world anymore. We are all, we are told, limited and limiting. There is no one with a vision, no one with courage, no one with commitment or a heart that never gives in. As far as the powerful, the significant and the influential go, all that is probably true. Today’s heroes live among the grass roots in the spaces ignored by the great and the vocal. They struggle with ignorance and being ignored. They refuse to go into the boxes to which state and media consign them. And they never give in. St Michael’s Estate is full of such heroes and heroines, people who are indestructible and still full of hope, people who tolerated a lot, suffered too much but were never defeated either by the state or by those whom the state allowed to come among them. This report is their story told by themselves. It is a story of their pride and our shame, a story of hope and sometimes passing moments of despair. Above all, though, it is a story of life and of hope, which comes not from promises or platitudes but from a determination that things have to be made better.
Brendan Ryan
Chairperson, St Michael’s Estate Task Force, 1998
Reviews:
Irish Times - The Public Reviews - Musings in Intermissions-
Credits:
Written by Grace Dyas and devised by cast
Directed by Grace Dyas
Associate Director Louise White
Set Design by Doireann Coady
Musical Director Seán Millar
Music Composed by Ger Kelly, Seán Millar & Barry O’Connor
Video Artist Joe Lee
Lighting Design by Eoin Winning
Costume by Emma Fraser
Performed by Shane Byrne, Gerard Kelly, Lauren Larkin, Louise Lewis and Barry O’Connor
Produced by Aisling Murray
Production Manager Adam Fitzsimons
Stage Manager Tom Mullan
The image above is of me, aged 4, taken by my uncle, the artist, Pat McGrath