Raging: Wild Sky: The Rising
()
About this ebook
Wild Sky is a story of interlocking lives: of the politicised Josie Dunne, and of Tom Farrell, who is driven only by his love for her. As the Rising plays out, there are unforeseen consequences for everyone involved...
The play was first staged at Rossnaree House, Slane, Co. Meath, in February 2016, transferring to Bewley's Café Theatre, Dublin, later that month.
Deirdre Kinahan's Raging trilogy tells powerful stories drawing on a tumultuous period of conflict in Irish history, from the 1916 Easter Rising to the Civil War which began in 1922. Each of the three plays – Wild Sky, Embargo and Outrage – was first performed a century after the event which it depicts, and they were commissioned and performed by companies including Fishamble: The New Play Company, Meath County Council Arts Office, Dublin Port Company and Iarnród Éireann.
Together, they challenge the historical narrative, mixing true-life testimonies with powerful drama to create a theatrical hurricane of empathy, action and truth.
'A soaringly touching piece, taking the tiny canvas of a love story between a boy and girl and giving it the compass of inevitable, pre-destined loneliness and loss... searing, beauteous simplicity' - Independent.ie
Deirdre Kinahan
Deirdre Kinahan is an award-winning playwright and a member of Aosdána, Ireland's elected body of outstanding artists. Her plays include: An Old Song, Half Forgotten (Abbey Theatre, 2023); Outrage (Fishamble, 2022); The Visit (Draiocht, Dublin Theatre Festival 2021); The Saviour (Landmark Productions, 2021); In the Middle of the Fields (Solas Nua DC, 2021); Embargo (Fishamble 2020); Dear Ireland (Abbey Theatre, 2020); The Bloodied Field (Abbey Theatre 2020); Rathmines Road (Fishamble and Abbey Theatre, 2018); Crossings (Pentabus Theatre, 2018); The Unmanageable Sisters, an adaptation of Michel Tremblay's Les Belles Soeurs (Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 2018); Wild Sky (Dublin, 2016); Spinning (Fishamble, 2014); Halcyon Days (Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, and Dublin Theatre Festival, 2012); and Moment (Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, 2009; Bush Theatre, London, 2011).
Read more from Deirdre Kinahan
The Saviour (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpinning (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hue & Cry (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRathmines Road (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Old Song, Half Forgotten (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalcyon Days (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBé Carna Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWild Notes (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaging: Embargo: The War of Independence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaging: Three Plays/Seven Years of Warfare in Ireland (NHB Modern Plays): Wild Sky, Embargo & Outrage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaging: Outrage: The Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBogboy (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrossings (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeirdre Kinahan: Shorts (NHB Modern Plays): Five Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Raging
Related ebooks
Raging: Outrage: The Civil War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaging: Embargo: The War of Independence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaging: Three Plays/Seven Years of Warfare in Ireland (NHB Modern Plays): Wild Sky, Embargo & Outrage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Few Men Faithful: A Kavanagh Story I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Seven: The Lives and Legacies of the Founding Fathers of the Irish Republic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Salient, 1914–1918: Tragedy and Triumph on the Western Front Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women At War 1914-91: Voices of the Twentieth Century Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Story of the Highland Regiments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExploded Identity: A Saga of the Halifax Explosion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCatherine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDawn's Early Light Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Colonel Thorndyke's Secret Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Glorious Madness – Tales of the Irish and the Great War: First-hand accounts of Irish men and women in the First World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsÉamon de Valera: A Will to Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen: Biographical Account of Queen Victoria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOdd Man Out Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trail of the Hawk Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFamine Ghost: Genocide of the Irish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRhapsody In Stephens Green: And The Insect Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFoul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths In Dublin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dreaming Suburb Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Siege of Loyalty House: A Story of the English Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Irish Brigade, 1670–1745: The Wild Geese in French Service Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFire Along the Frontier: Great Battles of the War of 1812 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Doing my bit for Ireland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bravo of London: And ‘The Bunch of Violets’ Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUlster, Ireland and the Somme: War Memorials and Battlefield Pilgrimages Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Raging
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Raging - Deirdre Kinahan
Deirdre Kinahan
WILD SKY
The Rising
NICK HERN BOOKS
London
www.nickhernbooks.co.uk
Contents
Introduction
Dedication
Original Production
Characters
Wild Sky
About the Author
Copyright and Performing Rights Information
Introduction
Deirdre Kinahan
Three plays; seven years of warfare in Ireland; and my own fifty-three years of fascination with the bloody birth of our nation.
I grew up in the shadow of one of the major players in the 1916 revolution, Padraig Pearse. I used to play in the grounds of his mother’s house, racing across the fields and climbing the bizarre follies that dot the parklands of what was his extraordinarily progressive Gaelic school at the turn of the century: St Enda’s, Rathfarnham. I literally lived ten minutes’ walk from his home. I used to cycle along the stony paths through the woods of the grounds, play roly-poly on the small hill next to the old classrooms, peer in the window at the old desks and dusters, wondering ‘What was it all like back then?’ I was always one for ‘What was it all like back then?’! When my young friends wanted to play Red Rover or rounders, I might suggest a game of Henry VIII killing all his wives, or Anne Devlin refusing to rat out Robert Emmet when captured in Kilmainham Jail. The centuries always disappeared for me, and the stories grew and grew in my imagination. So to have a voice in Ireland’s commemoration of her revolution is honestly one of the greatest privileges and the greatest thrills of my writing career.
I was, however, initially wary of the ‘history’ play. It is a tricky beast. It can be didactic, overloaded with information or worse still… boring! So when Meath County Council asked me to write a play inspired by the events of the 1916 Easter Rising I was both delighted and a little nervous. Considering every Irish household has a story of brutal murder, deliberate starvation by local English landlords, or Granny hiding guns in her knickers to keep them safe from British soldiers, I wondered how Irish households might react to the actual truth of the period.
Similarly, there is the tragic reality of continued warfare in Northern Ireland; a rump state created in the midst of that time; and then, of course, Ireland’s strong culture of celebrity historians, professional historians, amateur historians, extremely vocal historians who might take great offence at the free imaginings of a playwright dancing on their turf! But I have always believed one has to put fear in one’s pocket when writing anything for public consumption so off I danced, sporting for a good old jig with Ireland’s ghosts.
***
Wild Sky was the first play –