An Grianán Extra a wee bit more 074 912 0777 www.angrianan.com Cover art by Laura Buchanan THE EATERY CAFE OPEN DAILY Monday to Friday 9.30 - 3.30 The hottest spot for breakfast or lunch. Free Wifi Available RECIPE Angie’s Kinnegar Beer Battered Sausages Ingredients: Vegetarian Sausages (3 per person) Approx 150 ml of Kinnegar Beer 250 g self-raising flour (gluten free) Sift flour into a mixing bowl. Make a hole in the centre of the flour. Slowly add beer while whisking together until it forms a smooth batter. Dip the sausages in the batter and carefully add to your deep fat fryer. Deep fry until golden brown. Serve with salad and chips. PROFILE On Frank McGuinness by Jessica Traynor, Literary Manager of the Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Ireland. Hailing from Buncrana, Frank McGuinness Alan Rickman, Lindsay Duncan and Fiona Shaw, is one of Ireland’s foremost playwrights. toured from the Abbey to BAM in New York. Frank’s work includes both original plays and His adaptation of James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ adaptations, and engages with themes as delighted Abbey audiences at Christmas 2012. various as both World Wars, Ulster loyalism, McGuinness’s adaptations demonstrate his sectarian violence, the rights of women, the keen psychological insight into some of the shifting sands of memory, the battleground of most intriguing characters of the Irish, European family life, and his beloved Donegal. and classical canon, while maintaining the stark lyricism of his own theatrical idiom. His first major success was ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme’, produced on the Peacock stage in 1985, and for which he was awarded the London Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. A passionate and ground-breaking play, it takes as its subject matter a group of young soldiers and their physical and spiritual journey towards the Somme, a cataclysmic event which took place on the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. The play deals with the forging of a new loyalism in the fires of World War I, and also explores the deep bonds between the men which encompass both love and violence. Recent plays have included ‘Greta Garbo Came to Donegal’, which looks at the unexpected arrival of the mysterious, elegant and incisive Garbo, just as the civil rights movement in the North begins to gather momentum, and ‘The Hanging Gardens.’ The latter again takes Donegal as its setting, with its protagonist, a novelist slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s, facing a reunion with his divided and competitive family. Frank McGuinness is a playwright Themes of memory, history, and patriarchal control are explored in a play both elegiac of whom Donegal and its people and savage. can be truly proud. His work enshrines the Donegal people and McGuinness has also adapted many classic plays with much success. In 1997, his adaptation landscape at the heart of some of of Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ won him a Tony the most vital Irish drama of the Award, and his 2010 adaptation of that playwright’s ‘John Gabriel Borkman’, starring past thirty years. 1 DRAMA The Kings of the Kilburn High Road Livin’ Dred Theatre Company Wednesday 17 & Thursday 18 Feb @ 8pm Tickets: €20 / €15 Written by Jimmy Murphy. Directed by Padraic for it brought to life many stories that I had McIntyre. heard from local workmen who had spent years A wonderful play full of humour and human working as navvies throughout the UK. sadness. In the mid-1970s a group of young It’s hard to believe that was 16 years ago and men left their homes in the West of Ireland, took some commentators actually argued that these the boat out of Dublin Bay and sailed across events never took place. I ended up on a “head the sea to England in the hope of making their to head” with a visiting nun on local radio fortunes and returning home. Twenty-fi ve years who argued that a land of saints and scholars later only one, Jackie Flavin, makes it home, but could never have produced such depraved, does so in a coffi n. The Kings of the Kilburn High broken and drunken men. Sadly nothing could Road takes place on the day the winners and be further from the truth and the depiction as losers of the group meet up to drink to Jackie outlined in the play was very real and all too Flavin’s memory and looks at their lives, lost true to life. But be sure to go and see the show dreams and their place in the new Ireland. for yourself and make up your own mind. In more recent times and again as a result of In the summer of 2000 we were fortunate to recession, hard times and unemployment, many host the original Red Kettle Theatre production of our skilled and unskilled workers were forced of this play. Ticket sales rocketed when an to emigrate once more. However most of these elderly Australian nun rang in to Highland Radio ended up not just in the UK but in far fl ung to complain vociferously about the content corners of the world and especially Australia. and strong language. Angry nuns aside, the From what I hear from the returning Aussie play has since become something of an Irish workers, especially those on building sites and classic, and was even adapted into a movie in the mines--events and happenings as portrayed 2007. Laurence Blake takes up the story: “The in the Kings of the Kilburn High Road are just last time I saw the show it was a very moving as applicable today in such areas as Perth, experience and not without some controversy. I Sydney, The Northern Territory or Queensland.” found the show very real, relevant and upsetting Cast: GIT – Malcolm Adams, SHAY – Arthur Riordan, JAP – Phelim Drew, MAURTEEN – Seamus O’Rourke, JOE – Charlie Bonner 2 DRAMA Of Mice and Men Rail Theatre Company Tuesday 23 at 8pm & Wednesday 24 February at 10am and 1pm Tickets: 8pm €15 / €12, matinees €10 Of Mice and Men is a powerful portrait of the job, George must choose between protecting American spirit and a heartbreaking testament his friend or staying the course towards his to the bonds of friendship. Set in California version of the American dream. Adapted by during the Great Depression, it follows John Steinbeck from his novel of the same two migrant workers George, a sharp but name it was chosen as Best Play that year by uneducated short-tempered man, and Lennie, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. We have a large but simple-minded man. Together they an evening performance on Tuesday 23rd hope to one day acquire their own piece of February and two matinee performances on land. But when Lennie stirs up trouble on the Wednesday 24th February at 10am and 1pm. 3 DRAMA/MUSIC A Terrible Beauty: Remembering 1916 Our cover art is by Ramelton artist Laura Buchanan and is inspired by photographs of the 1916 Rising. We are celebrating and remembering those events with three shows this Easter, to coincide with the centenary of this event which brought about our modern nation. We have a dramatic reading of a new play Beneath an Irish Sky by local historian Kieran Kelly, The Rising features two Donegal actors John Ruddy and Brian Gillespie while Left Behind: Songs of the 1916 Widows is a music recital inspired by the women involved in The Rising. Beneath an Irish Sky by Kieran Kelly Dramatic Reading directed by David Grant Tuesday 22 March at 8pm Tickets: €5 “At first glance, the town of Letterkenny appears to have little connection to the events of Easter Week 1916. The Pulpit of the Four Masters in St. Eunan’s Cathedral was designed and sculpted by the family of Patrick Pearse and Joseph Sweeney, who fought in the GPO, attended St. Eunan’s College, but the town was affected, like the whole country was, by the actions of the rebels in the capital one hundred years ago. “Beneath an Irish Sky is my tale of a character from Letterkenny, Brendan McDaid, as he recalls years later how he moved from the peaceful Nationalism of the Ancient Order of Hibernians into the more militant Republicanism The British troops departing Letterkenny in 1922 of Sinn Féin as a direct consequence of the following the War of Independence 1916 Rising. This life altering decision will have far reaching implications for both himself and “A local historian at heart, Beneath an Irish Sky his family. Based on research from eyewitness is my first full length play and I am delighted testimonies and archive newspaper reports, that this dramatic reading will be taking place Letterkenny between 1914 and 1921 serves as as part of the centenary commemorations in An the backdrop to his journey. Grianán Theatre.” Kieran Kelly 4 McKeague and O’Brien present The Rising and by way of Interludes World War I Powerscourt Productions and Co-Motion Media Wednesday 23 March at 8pm, also matinee on Wednesday 23 March at 12pm Tickets: €15 / 12 for the evening show and €10 for the matinee Relive the tumultuous days of the 1916 Rising A native of Letterkenny, Brian Gillespie now through the eyes of two friendly adversaries, lives in London where he is the artistic director O’Brien, a Catholic, and Mc Keague, a Protestant. of B-Hybrid Dance Over an action packed 90 minutes O’Brien and . McKeague will tell the story of this pivotal event in Irish history in vaudeville style, with humour, song and dance, as they re-enact the Rising and the events that led to it, including World War 1.