MARCH, DONNACHA, MARCH!
My latest plan for educating the Northern masses in mutual understanding and harmony has had a vice versa effect in some quarters.
Eamonn McCann, 01 Apr 1998
My latest plan for educating the Northern masses in mutual understanding and harmony has had a vice versa effect in some quarters.
I had embraced a complaint in a local paper about the cultural imbalance involved in promotion of the Oscar-nominated Derry film Dance Lexie Dance. Why, the complainant wished reasonably to know, have we never had a film along the lines of Dance Lexie Dance but offering the opposite point of view ?
Dance Lexie Dance, made for under #40,000 of the BBC s money by Pearse Moore and Dave Duggan, told the story of a widowed Protestant man whose winsome daughter has got her heart set on entering the Irish dancing competition at Feis Dhoire Colmcille. Dad, as might be imagined, is by no means ecstatic at his wee girl s gra for the Irish dancing. But his obduracy eases, as it must, in the warmth of her smile, and, awkwardly, in Easter Week, he escorts her in her intricate Celtic-design dance-frock to the Guildhall.
He takes his uneasy place in the hall. And then his whole being melts into love when her number is called, and they catch one another s eye as she walks onto the stage, and hold one another for a moment as she raises herself, poised on her toes centre-stage, and the music strikes up for her set. He dotes as she dances, and then whoops, cheers and whistles at the end as they beam on one another across the crowded room.
She doesn t win which doesn t matter. The pair do a jig of joy along the banks of the Foyle on their way home. You can easily imagine Academy members feeling good.
But why not a reverse-angle version called March Donnacha March?, the angry letter-to-the-editor demanded to know. And why not indeed?, it occurred to me. In a twinkling, I had sketched free, gratis and for nothing other than non-sectarian pleasure an outline script.
March Donnacha March would tell the tale of a widowed Catholic dad and a son who has hitched his hopes of happiness to taking part in the Twelfth of July parade through Derry city centre. Initially, Dad won t hear of this heresy. But his spirit aches with sadness at the sight of little Donnacha after tea every evening strutting alone in the back yard.
Eventually, of course, the sense of acrimony is sweetened with love. On the Twelfth, Donnacha s Orange dream is made real.
I envisage the redemptive, climactic scenes. Dad, still uncertain, waiting behind the crash-barrier on the crowded pavement in the Diamond as the colourful parade swings into view. He observes, with a certain wonderment, the bright banners raised high, and scans the faces of the various contingents, until, at last, little Donnacha s lodge comes round the corner of the War Memorial. And, suddenly, there s Donnacha, well-scrubbed face blissfully aglow and proud Orange sash slung across his chest, arms swinging in jaunty time to the thump of the drum from the band just in front with its rollicking rendition of Dolly s Brae .
Swept up in the exuberance of the moment, heart athrill from sudden elated understanding, dad finds himself shouting out in celebration of the little lad s splendid triumph over cultural curtailment and and restriction. Later, they march happily back home to the Bogside, in single file and strictly in step, their ears still filled with the rakish music of the fine flute bands.
Award-winning or what?
The only response received from the appropriate source was in the form of a stamped, addressed letter to the effect that this was a scabrous scenario (slick enough phrase) which you are well aware, Mr. McCann, would put the Loyalist people up for sneers, which is exactly your intention .
To which, in truth, I had (privately) to plead half-guilty.
But let s ask ourselves this: Why is it that Dance Lexie Dance, notwithstanding the obvious element of wishful thinking, is plausible enough to attract the production money, while March Donnacha March is simply ridiculous, to the extent that it wouldn t work even as fantasy?
Answer that one correctly and you re a stretch further along the road to understanding why the attainment of peace is a more profound undertaking than a pact between political parties. n
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