Highway To Shell

Three decades of outstanding work by Donal O’Kelly have earned the Dublin writer, actor and theatre director a reputation as a theatrical genius. O’Kelly’s latest work – arguably his most important to date – is a solo piece entitled Ailliliú Fionnuala: A Play About The Shell Corrib Gas Project. Its main character, Keogh, is a Shell PR executive...

Written and performed by O’Kelly, with direction and lighting design by Sorcha Fox, Ailliliú Fionnuala is a riveting piece of theatre. Judging by its rapturous recent premier run at Dublin’s Lanigan’s Theatre, the play is set to blaze a very bright trail, both nationally and abroad, over the next 12 months.
Shell’s human rights abuses on every continent have been well-documented. For over 10 years, this sociopathic corporation, in collusion with the Irish State, has abused the rights of those communities in North Mayo who have attempted to resist Shell’s occupation of their land and sea. Shell’s presence in this beautiful part of Ireland is an ongoing litany of cruelty and greed – yet in its reportage, the mainstream media has been notoriously open to Shell-spin. Hence the critical importance of Ailliliú Fionnuala as documentary art: it cuts a swathe through Shell/State propaganda, allowing audiences to access the truth of what’s happening in North Mayo.
“The Shell Corrib Gas Project is like a synopsis of what’s gone wrong with the country,” says the play’s creator Donal O’Kelly, “to the point where we’re hardly an independent state any more. The way that the project was pushed through from the very beginning, with very little regard for due democratic process or basic civil rights, is exactly how we’ve ended up giving our independence away.
“I’ve got to know people around the Rossport area over the last few years, from going there and listening and looking. One of the incidents that’s referred to in detail in the play is the attack on Willie Corduff, which took place in April 2009. Willie had been under a Shell truck for about 17 hours. Gardaí had forcefully tried to remove him, taking off his shoes and socks and cutting his ankle with a stone. At 3.30 in the morning, Willie was viciously attacked by eight people and injured very badly. I happened to be doing a show in Belmullet a few days later, and I visited Willie and saw the state he was in, in bed at home. You sense when somebody has had a close-to-death experience. That was one of the conversations that decided for me that this story has to be told theatrically.
“The resilience that the communities opposing the pipeline have shown is amazing. Their commitment to participatory democracy is exemplary. Yet they find themselves continually with the forces of the State ranged against them, rather than with them. I’m inspired by their resilience, and also their commitment to the truth of the situation. It’s instructive for all Irish people. When you really look at what’s happened there, and the way it’s portrayed most of the time in the media, it’s incredibly refreshing to see how the local people have maintained a positive belief in the democratic process, despite it being used against them repeatedly.”
In terms of visual design, Ailliliú Fionnuala is minimal, the only prop a large metal desk that O’Kelly puts to inventive use. Yet the writing and performance are so powerful, they fill the empty space with vivid imagery and emotion. The audience becomes spellbound by a gripping tapestry of political corruption and personal tragedy, intertwined with the Mayo landscape and a mischievous take on ancient mythology. It’s impossible not to hang on every word, as you speed through a surreal landscape of dark humour, horror, heroism and ultimately hope.
“The director Sorcha Fox and I wanted to challenge the audience to participate theatrically with their imaginations,” explains O’Kelly. “For me, that’s the audience participating in the show. It’s not something you just come along to and consume. I think too much theatre is consumer-oriented, and therefore reinforces our self-image that we’re encouraged to have nowadays, that we’re consumers first, and citizens after.”
What is O’Kelly’s response to critics who claim that his art is too polemical?
“I’ve been doing it like that for 30 years now,” he laughs. “The word ‘polemical’ is used as a term of abuse, and I don’t think it should be. Sometimes there’s a dire need for polemical theatre, and I think that now is one of those times. With the state we’re in, it might be far more important to ask why writers aren’t being more polemical. And from the audience reaction to Ailliliú Fionnuala, I think polemical theatre is something that people actually need.”

Catch Ailliliú Fionnuala by Donal O’Kelly on December 1 at The Anchor Arts Centre, Donegal; December 2 at the Glenamoy Hall, Mayo; and at 1pm for two weeks starting January 14 in The Underbelly in Sweeney’s, Dublin.