We marked St Patrick’s Day yesterday in the most counterintuitive of ways. “It is their time to speak and our time to listen,” Abbey co-directors Graham McLaren and Neil Murray said. It was a bold and brave step because, too often, St Patrick’s Day is a time for artifice and the painting over of the very many cracks in our society, past and present, with a vivid shade of green. Those experiences were relayed in harrowing but important detail last night as they were livestreamed from the Abbey Theatre. The fact that the voices of women were given space to be heard at our national theatre, on our national day, is a powerful statement.

Source: Irish Examiner March 18, 2021 09:33 UTC