Moyross
Limerick City of Culture, May 2014
“Taken together, the art asked you to recognise Limerick's history, the good and bad of its reality, yet to look at the city in new ways. Theatreclub's 'Moyross', made with the estate's community, looked deeper than the area's bad rap (while featuring some excellent rap).” - Peter Crawley, Irish Times
My words to the Irish Examiner’s Collette Sheridan at the time “The show will give a voice to this rich, funny and vibrant community. After staging HEROIN in Limerick in 2013, I developed a conversation with the community and youth workers in Moyross. The show kind of arose out of that. People from Moyross expressed interest in our work and it was interesting to see the comparisons between Dublin and Limerick in terms of social history. I thought it would be cool to come down and do something in Moyross.
It was built in the early 1970s without social infrastructure. The area has made headlines tends to make headlines for all the wrong reasons. When you get to know Limerick, you find out that a lot of clubs and sports activities are based in Moyross. But outside of Limerick, there’s a perception that Moyross is all about violent crime. Because of the regeneration project, the population of Moyross has gone from 7,000 to about 1,200, with many residents opting for the opportunity to leave the area while new houses were built. There’s not nearly as much development as has been promised but hopefully, it will come around again. It’s a shame really because there are great facilities in Moyross now, achieved after a long community struggle.
Moyross the show is essentially about the history of the area, starring 70 locals. It’s about the current lives of people here; it deals with horse culture and the music scene that’s emerging here. There’s a great hip-hop scene happening. The show will be narrated through rap by three locals called MYC (Moyross Youth Crew)
In terms of the content, that’s all coming from the residents. The story of Moyross is that there were high aspirations for it when it was built. But because of recession, there were no amenities and that led to huge social problems. With high unemployment, vulnerable people were all in one place together without even a shop between them. A lot of community campaigning for amenities took place. The people had to fight for every single they have now. Everyone gets to do a scene. The age range of the cast is from eight months to 80 years of age.
We experienced a bit of trepidation and caginess around the project at first. A lot of the time, media people have come in from outside, won the people’s trust but then portrayed them in a way they don’t want to be portrayed. We had to earn the people’s trust.
There is some anger in the show. “It’s a reflective kind of anger. The show asks a lot of questions. The people wanted to explore the different reasons why a school wasn’t built; why a church wasn’t built. It’s very much grounded in reality.”
After a year long development process, myself Shane Byrne, Lauren Larkin and Louise Lewis lived and worked in Limerick with the people of Moyross for a month, culminating in four nights to packed houses in The Lime Tree Theatre Limerick, in a co-production with THEATREclub under the visionary guidance of Louise Donlon. The work was funded by Limerick City of Culture and The Limetree with support in kind from Garda Youth Diversion Project Moyross
The cast comprised of 70 people from the Moyross area.
Eoin Winning did the Lighting Design and it was Production Managed by The Lime Tree.
Graphic Design at the top of this page by Sean Cunningham