Playwright Deirdre Kinahan - “Living to retire is such a cod. None of us knows what’s coming next”
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What is the significance of migration in Deirdre Kinahan's new play 'Refuge'?
Deirdre Kinahan, welcome to the programme. Thanks so much. How are you keeping? I'm brilliant. Yeah, great. Not a bother. Brought the sun with you. Look, Deirdre, everybody will know you as the author of multiple hit plays, including Rathmines Road, Bog Boy and the Unmanageable Sisters. But you've just written a new play for this year's Dublin Theatre Festival. And actually, it was interesting just cross-reffing our earlier conversation with the panel on one of the biggest issues of our time, migration.
Absolutely, yeah. I mean, it really is the theme of our time and I was listening out there in the waiting room to the conversation, the very positive conversation about immigration and, like, as a playwright, I have to write into it. And I've actually got four plays premiering this year, all on a similar theme, very, very different, but about people being washed around the world. I mean, it's a story as old as time.
Talk to me about Refuge because it's... Did it come about as a result of a commission? Was it a brief or was it something that you were already working on?
No, it was a commission.
How does Deirdre Kinahan's personal experience influence her writing?
I'm very privileged in that a lot of my plays get translated and produced around the world. And one play in particular, Ratmines Road, was produced by a big German state theatre, Stadttheater Mainz. And they did a magnificent job on the production. And I met all the people involved.
Just an incredible theatre scene there.
Oh, it's just in a different world. I mean, the resources that are underneath it, that underpin it, it's just in a different league entirely, you know. But artistically, we're well able to match them. And I suppose what's really wonderful about Refuge is it was a commission from Statt Theatre Mainz because the artistic director and dramaturg there, Jörg, had come across a story of a group of German immigrants who'd come to Ireland in 1710. And they were from the Palatinate. They were known as the Palatines. And interestingly, there's a group of descendants still living in Limerick who can trace themselves right back to that small group of immigrants who came over. And York was fascinated about this and asked me, would I be interested in researching it and writing a play about it?
But the Palatines themselves were a very interesting group to emigrate and the reasons why they wanted them to come and populate other places.
Well, that's it. I think when I got into the story of the Palatines that I realised, wow, this is so interesting.
They were Protestants. They are Protestants. Absolutely.
Absolutely. So basically what happened was at the time there had been a hundred years war in that part of Europe. There'd been famine. There had been, you know, great poverty and really, really harsh winter. And Queen Anne of England at the time was trying to populate her colonies. So this kind of great little golden book went running around all the German palatinate villages promising a great new life in the new world. empty landscapes where you would get houses, you would get homes, you would get set up. So Palatines literally set off in rafts down the Rhine, crossed Europe in little kind of trailers and arrived in London.
Did they understand they were colonisers or were being used for that purpose?
Absolutely not. You know, they were seeking refuge. A lot of them got sent to the West Indies. A lot of them got sent to America. But a handful of them were brought over by Irish planters and brought to estates in Wexford and in Kerry and in Limerick. And they were given tools.
What historical events inspired the story of the Palatines in 'Refuge'?
They were given land. They were given housing. But they didn't realise that they were being plucked out of one war and basically planted into another. So I found that, you know, a really, really interesting conceit. And I thought, right, I have to get into this story, find out who these people were, what they were fleeing, what their life was like in Germany and in Ireland. And then I wanted to marry it with a contemporary story of emigration, because obviously, as we spoke of earlier, it really is the theme of our time.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the significance of migration in Deirdre Kinahan's new play 'Refuge'?
0:00–1:03
2
How does Deirdre Kinahan's personal experience influence her writing?
1:03–3:35
3
What historical events inspired the story of the Palatines in 'Refuge'?
3:35–17:31
4
How does Deirdre Kinahan blend historical and contemporary narratives in her plays?
17:31–23:18