In my memory I will always see
The town that I have loved so well
(Phil Coulter)
I went to a play in the Dunamaise Arts Centre on Tuesday night. Great play. Great cast. Great venue. There was only 30 at it. The place holds 230.
‘Johnny I hardly Knew Ye’ a new work written and directed by Jim Nolan is an authentic and credible take on the challenges and tribulations of the staff in a typical newsroom of a local regional newspaper.
For good measure it was set in the midlands on the eve of the 1916 centenary commemorations in the run up to a general election. It was very close for comfort from where I was sitting. It’s hard to hide in a near empty theatre.
There was no hiding place either from the resonance of the play, the stark realities of the world we live in where in old money, pounds, shillings and pence are the values that outweigh all else.
“Pearse, Connolly, McDermott and the rest of their merry men; they died for a Republic. But we don’t live in a Republic, we live in an economy,” decries the besieged Editor (the outstanding Garrett Keogh) under fire from all sides, not least the new proprietors, their love affair with online platforms and obsession with the bottom line, as the only lines that count in a newspaper.
The five strong cast were all superb in their contrasting portrayals of the usual motley crew that makes up a newsroom. Looking on, it was like looking into my own heart and soul as 30 years went by in the blink of an eye and a two-act play and the apparent futility of it and giving a bags at all.
I could match up real life people with every part and if that wasn’t surreal enough, I met the star of the show, Michael Hayes, a half an hour earlier having his supper in nearby O’Loughlin’s Hotel. He steals the show with his performance of the hapless general dogsbody reporter/photographer who relies on his aging mother to get him from one job to another, whether a county final preview or the local court. (Bizarrely, Hayes the actor is probably better known as the fella who rescues the pig in the Vodafone advert).
If the drama itself held up a mirror to offer some telling (and worrying) insights into Ireland 2016, so too did the play in terms of Portlaoise Town. Only 30 in the theatre.
If I had a penny for every time that people complain about the Town and how there’s nothing ever in it … while time and time again it’s the same half dozen who get out there and organise anything, give their time tirelessly and selflessly and volunteer to supervise or organise all the events and activities that the rest of us get to turn up at, enjoy … and criticise!!
Portlaoise had an Arts Festival ever before Galway or Kilkenny, back in 1985 … ask John Dunne, Pat Critchley or Denise Dunne, it was organised in their kitchen.
I’m not going to start naming names as I will for sure cause offence by leaving out someone, but we later had the Jazz Festival and after that again another Arts Festival. (I’m not even going to go into the original Festival Francais de Portarlington, (thanks chiefly to Ray Searson of the East End Hotel); Mountmellick Mardi Gras (1987), and so many more.
Names aside, it was always the usual suspects who organised and who turned up to support these events, which at the time were on par with any in the country in terms of their ambition or programming. Their downfall was the lack of stamina, perseverance and capacity to stay going year after year in the face of too many obstacles, not least apathy.
The savage loves his native shore and while I would be the first to own up to the shortcomings of Portlaoise and Laois, I don’t like anyone else running us down. Everyone is entitled to their view of course and to criticise, but I believe that you earn that right to give your tuppence worth if you have tried to make some contribution to do something yourself rather than be of the ‘Do you know what you should do,’ type of know-all.
I’m not saying don’t complain, I’m saying at least make it constructive criticism and have some alternative to put forward.
So it happens that on the same night that ‘Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye’ is playing to a practically empty theatre, Laois County Council are unveiling their grand, no, mucho grande, plans for the future of the Town in the nearby and magnificently refurbished belle grande Heritage Hotel.
And if the new look Heritage is magnifico so too are the grandiose plans for Portlaoise 2040 no less.
To say the least, the reaction to the plans have been less than complimentary and so far have ranged from lukewarm to, you have got to be f*****g kidding.
Now I am not here to defend the good folk in the Council, they can speak for themselves. God knows I have hopped off them often enough in my time and I would say deservedly so. However, they deserve to be given a chance. So too does this much vaunted, 3D, space age, ambitious, aspirational, all singing, all dancing plan for Portlaoise. There are some good ideas in there, it’s not all bad and let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I have heard all the arguments and they are not just particular to Portlaoise. Look at a major town like Naas, hollowed out from the town centre too and the Main Street dying on its feet. The insatiable appetite for growth in Dublin continues unassuaged. Last week, LaoisToday astonishingly reported that over 10,000 people a day are leaving Laois to commute to work elsewhere. Not having a plan is not an option.
There are solutions, and some are unique to each area. Portlaoise is not Kilkenny, but it does have its own unique potential and possibilities. These need to be teased out, explored and exploited for the good of all the business community and the broader community who live, work and visit here.
The Council for its part has to realise and respect that there is a deep and well-founded distrust of anything that emanates from County Hall going back years and due to years of bitter experience, where people feel they heard it all before.
Consultation has to be more than lip service and a good starting point for the local authority would be to commit to not doing any harm to the handful of small, locally owned, traditional family businesses that remain in the town centre. (I could go into chapter and verse here, but best leave that to another day too).
There have been some woefully bad decisions inflicted on Portlaoise due to a combination of dodgy politics/planning. Rather than repeat or compound those it strikes me that here is an opportunity to address if not undo some of them and to breathe new life into the heart of our county town for the benefit of everyone.
To give the Council some credit it will be a good start for the Main Street thoroughfare to relocate the court house and redevelop that historic quarter as well as building the county library in the lower square on the former Shaws premises.
I’m someone who has devoted 30 years of my working life to newspapers, LPs and black and white photography. Well that’s all very fine for nostalgia and niche markets but I got it wrong. Online platforms, music downloads and digital cameras on phones are here to stay … along with online internet shopping, online dating and whatever you’re having yourself.
For those of us who fail to face up to and accept that reality, well I’m afraid it’s going to be a case of Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye all over again.
