seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Edinburgh Festival Fringe


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Birth of Mannix Flynn, Politician, Author & Playwright

Gerard Mannix Flynn, an Irish Independent politician, author and playwright, is born in Dublin on May 4, 1957. He is serving as a Dublin City Councillor since May 2009. In addition to his work on Dublin City Council, he has also written the novel Nothing To Say in 1983 and the play James X in 2002.

At the age of eleven, Flynn is sent to St. Joseph’s Industrial School in Letterfrack, County Galway, for eighteen months. He is subjected to sexual and physical abuse there. He also spends time in Marlborough House Detention Centre, Daingean, County Offaly, St. Patrick’s Institution, Dublin, and is given five years at the age of fifteen and sent to Mountjoy Prison.

Flynn publishes the novel Nothing To Say in 1983. It is subsequently translated into German, Italian, and Polish. He founds his arts company, Farcry Productions, in 2004, which produces visual art, performance and installation work around taboo issues such as child sexual abuse, violence, and addiction.

In 2004, James X performed by Flynn wins The Irish Times Irish Theatre Award. An earlier version of this play entitled Talking to the Wall previously wins the Edinburgh Fringe award.

Flynn appears in the films Cal, When the Sky Falls and Excalibur and works as an actor in Scotland, London, Austria, and Dublin for twenty years.

Flynn is first elected to Dublin City Council in the 2009 Irish local elections as an independent candidate representing the South-East Inner City electoral area. He is re-elected to the revised Pembroke-South Dock electoral area in the 2014 Irish local elections.

Flynn tables a motion to move the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, a State company set up in 1991 as a regeneration agency for Temple Bar, under the direct control of Dublin City Council. The trust is subsequently found to be in breach of corporate governance and accountability in a number of public reports. He also expresses critical views of the way public money is spent as part of a Grafton Street regeneration project in Dublin.

Flynn supports tougher regulation around the amplification of busking on public streets, which leads to his office being vandalised in February 2015. He is involved in a number of challenges to cycle lane provision, with a High Court challenge against the Strand Road cycle lane COVID-19 mobility trial and is a spokesperson for a group opposed to this cycle lane trial. Critics accuse him of consistently voting against policies that would provide more active travel infrastructure and in favour of policies which negatively impact pedestrians and cyclists. His legal challenges to cycling provision have the potential to revert a number of cycle lanes which have been created back to servicing predominantly cars.

In 2015, Flynn resigns from the Dublin City Council Arts SPC over what he perceives as a lack of cohesive overall policy, strategy, and vision.

In 2016, Flynn protests against the Artane Band, due to its association with the Artane Industrial School. The band responds saying it has had no association with the former industrial school. His peaceful protest, which includes him protesting on a window sill in his Dublin City Council office, is criticised by some as “attention seeking” and a “publicity stunt full stop.”

In 2019, Flynn is involved in a protest march against plans to open the state’s largest homeless shelter in his ward. Protesters march northbound on Aungier Street blocking traffic and shouting slogans against the Peter McVerry trust for providing the services in conjunction with Dublin City Council. In 2020, he takes further legal action against the council, who are working in conjunction with the Peter McVerry Trust, so that he can ensure the homeless facilities will not be built in the area.

Flynn contests the 2011, 2016 and 2020 Irish general elections to Dáil Éireann unsuccessfully. He stands unsuccessfully as an independent candidate at the 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election, getting 879 first-preference votes (3.3%).

A 2019 documentary by Flynn, Land Without God, about the effects of clerical abuse on Flynn and his family, receives special mention for the Dublin Human Rights Film Award at the Dublin International Film Festival.


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“Stones in His Pockets” Receives Three Tony Award Nominations

On May 7, 2001, the Broadway play Stones in His Pockets by Belfast playwright Marie Jones receives three nominations for the theatre world’s top honour, the Tony Awards, in New York. Conleth Hill and Sean Campion are nominated in the Leading Actor category and Ian McElhinney is nominated for Best Director. It is a two-hander written in 1996 by Jones for the DubbleJoint Theatre Company in Dublin.

The play is a tragicomedy about a small rural town in Ireland where many of the townspeople are extras in a Hollywood film. The story centres on Charlie Conlon and Jake Quinn, who, like much of the town, are employed as extras for the filming. The key point in the play is when a local teenager commits suicide, by drowning himself with stones in his pockets, after he is humiliated by one of the film stars. The script calls upon the cast of two to perform all 15 characters (men and women), often switching gender and voice swiftly and with minimal costume change. Comedy also derives from the efforts of the production crew to create the proper “Irish feel” – a romanticised ideal that often conflicts with the reality of daily life.

The play is first shown as a DubbleJoint Production premiering in West Belfast in August 1996. The set design, by Jack Kirwan, is simple – a backcloth depicting the cloudy sky above the Blasket Islands, a row of shoes (symbolising the myriad characters) and a trunk, a box, and two tiny stools. The lighting design is originally by James C. McFetridge and this design is used in both the London West End and the Broadway versions of the show.

The show moves to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1999. It then returns to Ireland and has a brief run in Dublin before moving to London‘s Tricycle Theatre. It then transfers to the New Ambassadors Theatre in London’s West End. The show, however, proves so successful, its run is extended and moves to the Duke of York’s Theatre up the road, where it remains for three years.

The original cast of Hill and Campion take the show to Broadway and, as its West End run continues to play to packed houses, actors line up to play Charlie and Jake, most notably Bronson Pinchot, Rupert Degas and Simon Delaney.

The play wins the Irish Times/ESB Irish Theatre Award for Best Production in 1999, wins two Laurence Olivier Awards in 2001 for Best New Comedy and Best Actor (Conleth Hill) and is also nominated for three Tony Awards in 2001.

Gothenburg English Studio Theatre makes a production of Stones in His Pockets in 2009. It is directed by Malachi Bogdanov with Mike Rogers and Gary Whitaker.

The play is translated to Finnish and has been on repertoire since 2002 at Helsinki City Theatre in Finland.

The play is revived at London’s Tricycle Theatre in 2011, with Jamie Beamish as Charlie and Owen McDonnell as Jake, and at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow in 2012 performed by Robbie Jack and Keith Fleming.

For the 20th anniversary of the first production, The Dukes in Lancaster and The Theatre Chipping Norton co-produce a touring production which opens at The Dukes on February 25, 2016, and tours 35 venues between then and May 28, 2016. Charlie de Bromhead plays Jake and Conan Sweeny plays Charlie.

The original version of the play is created in collaboration with theatre director Pam Brighton, who later sues Marie Jones for co-authorship rights. Brighton loses the case in the high court, and subsequently becomes bankrupt.