Headford News and Community Spotlight-Waiting for the Past. . .

 HAVE YOU GOTTEN YOUR TICKET YET? If not, you better hurry because Sunday September 14th 2014 is the Solas Family Resource Centre Annual Dance. It will be at the McWilliam Park Hotel in Claremorris and tickets are available now at Solas for only €10. Music will be by TR Dallas (from 5 ot 8 pm) and Showbud (from 9 to 11:30 pm). Everyone who is anyone will be there. Rumour has it even Garth Brooks will be there. What? It could happen. So get your tickets quick, before all the Garth groupies do.


COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT 

Waiting for the Past to Influence the Present

In the mid-1840’s, there was no ‘famine’ in Ireland. Famine is a lack of food. There was plenty of food grown here in the mid-19^th century. Unfortunately, that food, grown by Irish people on Irish soil, had to be sent to England to pay rent to British landlords. Consequently, many people in this country were left to suffer prolonged starvation, typhoid fever, cholera, and all the various horrors associated with famine.

At that time, a 15-year-old girl in Headford must have been listening to the national sentiment against this unjust situation. For, although she was educated by a private governess, and her father was a wealthy gentleman farmer, the young Headford girl wrote poems that accurately reflected the nation’s angst. That young girl, Mary Anne Kelly, had her first poem published in The Nation in 1845:

Down Britannia, brigand down!
No more to rule with sceptred hand:
Truth raises o’er thy throne and crown
Her exorcising wand

Soon after that, this young poet began to use the pen name ‘Eva’ and became known as Eva of the Nation. Being a patriot with a knack for writing rebellious poetry, it was probably inevitable that Eva would fall madly in love with a passionate-‘Liberate Ireland!’-type guy. His name was Kevin Doherty. He was arrested and transported to Tasmania for his involvement in the Young Irelanders, but Eva promised she would wait for him. And she did. After seven long years, Kevin was released on condition that he not return to Ireland. But he returned anyway, risking his life, and married Eva. Aw, sweet.

Fast forward one hundred and fifty-ish years to 1992 . . .

Eva and Kevin’s great, great granddaughter, Vivian Nesbitt, travelled from New Mexico, USA to Headford on a quest to learn about her ancestors. But that quest turned into a surprising personal pilgrimage.

When Vivian first visited her great-great granny’s old home, Lisdonagh House, she met the infamous Valda Palmer (the woman who, according to legend, put the ‘eek!’ in freak). In addition to this startling encounter, Vivian met other unforgettable characters on that trip. They included a cook, a maȋtre d’, a bartender, and a dream encounter with granny Eva.

Vivian openly admits that back in 1992, she was ‘ill-prepared for life,’ and as a result of this journey she recovered from drinking, faced some personal demons, and stopped holding herself back. That’s a heck of a lot to get from one holiday. But Vivian got even more. Romanced by the story of Eva of the Nation’s boundless integrity to her one true love, Vivian was inspired to write an award-winning play.

The Bark and the Tree, is a fictionalized documentary about Vivian’s 1992 pilgrimage including heartbreak, comedy, insight and profound synchronicity. At its heart, this seems to be a story of how ancestors—even if they are separated from us by centuries and continents—can help us heal. In this one-woman show Vivian plays seven different characters, and you’ll have a chance to meet all of them this coming Saturday night.

‘I’m excited,’ Vivian says. ‘This is a real homecoming for the play because it started here twenty-two years ago.’

In spite of the great amount of words written by and about Eva of the Nation, there’s almost nothing that actually describes who she really was. So Vivian explains that part of her writing process involved sort of channelling Eva’s emotional life.

Most importantly, she ended up getting some life changing advice from the whole process of researching and writing about Eva, who waited so long for her one true love. ‘She waited for a purpose,’ Vivian says. ‘Her message to me was, “What are you waiting for?”’

So if you find yourself waiting around Saturday night for something to do . . .

The Bark and the Tree

(winner Best Documentary Play, United Solo Festival, NYC)

6^th September

9 pm

Headford Parish Hall

Tickets: €10; Seniors €8