This moving, lyrical exploration of the terrible treatment of unmarried mothers and their children in Ireland draws on both the personal family history of the writer and, as a metaphor, the historical treatment of Ireland.
The name of Róisin came to stand for Ireland in a period when Irish Nationalism was banned, so later Luke Kelly of the Dubliners referring to patriots such as Tone and Emmet asked in verse, "For what died the sons of Róisín."
That history is now being celebrated, but there is a hidden, sometimes forbidden history of the daughters of Róisin that still needs to be spoken about.
Aoibh Johnson gently adopts slightly different speech styles from the sometimes sharply poetical, implicitly political narrator to the conversational young seventeen-year-old, who, loving life, became romantically attached to someone. In the role of that young woman, she says that for “the first time in my life I felt special, beautiful and important.”
It results in what is termed by the world in which she was born as a sickness, and as this sickness becomes more certain, this young woman is confined to a room. She is not allowed out into the world. Instead, she spends time speaking to the sickness that is growing inside her body.
Her mother tells her not to look out of the window in case someone sees her in that condition. A visitor “says he told the girl he was going to give the sickness to someone else who was better equipped”.
Versatile acting from Aoibh Johnson, skillfully directed by Cahil Clarke and aided by changes in the lighting organised by Oisin Clarke, clearly indicates who is speaking and the kind of connection the characters will have with the audience.
The child defined as a sickness doesn’t fit with the social expectations of this cruel society and is taken away like so many other children born to unmarried mothers not so long ago in Ireland.
But this play will not end on a note of loss or sadness speaking only of our “grief... because Ireland brought them to their knees.” Instead, it will talk about its objection to what happened and pay homage “to our girls who fought” for change.
Our narrator asks, “to who do we owe our allegiance?”