Draft:The Ballymun Trilogy
The Ballymun Trilogy is a trilogy of plays by Irish playwright Dermot Bolger. The trilogy consists of From These Green Heights (2004), The Townlands of Brazil (2006) and The Consequences of Lightning (2008).
Plot
[edit]From These Green Heights
[edit]The play follows Dessie
The Townlands of Brazil
[edit]A
The Consequences of Lightning
[edit]A
Production
[edit]Dermot was originally commissioned to make a poem called Ballymun Incantation to be read at the demolition of first Ballymun flat, he also read it the day after due to public demand.[1] The public demand that led to another reading of the poem caused the Axis Art Centre and Theatre in Ballymun to commission a play based on the poem, and after "extraordinary local responses" to the play, the axis commissioned two more.[1]
Reception
[edit]In November 2004, Fintan O'Toole, writing for The Irish Times praised From These Green Heights' "perfect expression of the chastened, watchful kind of hope" that people who are often "let down so badly so often [have]", while noting that the "story of almost 40 years" ideally would've been a series of plays[a] to avoid the inevitability of some moments "moving too rapidly to be properly realised", with some dialogue having 'clunky exposition'.[2] In the book, Literary visions of multicultural Ireland: The immigrant in contemporary Irish literature, Paula Murphy considered The Townlands of Brazil to be asking Ballymunners and Irish society as a whole to "re-imagine their personal and national histories in new historical, social, and cultural frameworks".[3] In 2006, Karen Fricker reviewing The Townlands of Brazil for The Guardian, said that Bolger clearly had 'too many stories to tell', and that the play would've been better as a dramaturg, though still felt the play was 'consistently intriguing and engaging', hoping that more plays like it would be made in the future.[4] In her book Irish Contemporary Landscapes in Literature and the Arts, Marie Mianowski says The Consequences of Lightning could be assessed as a "melodramatic summary of the stormy history of Ballymun [...] characterized by the strained relations between the protagonists".[5]
Notes
[edit]- ↑ This review came before the other two plays were commisioned
References
[edit]- 1 2 Malone, Niamh (19 July 2014). ""Oh Jesus, I can't take this": Playing Witness to the Dramatization of Ballymun's Urban Regeneration Project, Dublin, 2004-2008". Breac. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- ↑ O'Toole, Fintan (26 November 2004). "Reviews". The Irish Times. Retrieved 27 April 2026.
- ↑ Murphy 2013, p. 152 "Bolger’s play presents a challenge not only to the residents of Ballymun but also to Irish society, in the way that it asks its audience to re-imagine their personal and national histories in new historical, social, and cultural frameworks. "
- ↑ Fricker, Karen (28 November 2006). "The Townlands of Brazil". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 April 2026.
- ↑ Mianowski 2012, p. 291 "The Consequences of Lightning, the conclusive play of the trilogy, can be assessed as a rather melodramatic summary of the stormy history of Ballymun, and is characterized by the strained relations between the protagonists"