Dermot Healy and memory
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2018v71n2p173Abstract
The essay focuses on Irish author Dermot Healy’s involvement with memories of old people within two collaborative projects: the making of a film based on the documentary novel I Could Read the Sky by Timothy O’Grady and Steve Pyke (1997), and the development of a documentary drama with the clients of a day care centre in Co. Monaghan, entitled Men to the Right, Women to the Left (2001). It examines the methods used to record the material and its subsequent creative use, particularly in comparison with the technique of British verbatim theatre, and in the context of the imperfections of individual memory that are deftly explored in Healy’s memoir The Bend for Home (1996). The essay ultimately argues that notwithstanding problems concerning authenticity, Healy’s play, alongside O’Grady and Pyke’s book and Nichola Bruce’s film version of it, should be regarded as vital contributions to the formation of Ireland’s cultural memory, particularly as they powerfully reconstruct “the mundane everyday” that is so often lost.References
Assmann, Jan (1995). “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity” (1988). Trans. John Czaplicka. New German Critique 65 (Spring-Summer). 125-33.
Assmann, Jan (2001). Kultura a paměť: písmo, vzpomínka a politická identita v rozvinutých kulturách starověku [Das kulturelle Gedächtniss: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, 1997]. Trans. Martin Pokorný. Praha: Prostor.
Berger, John, and Jean Mohr (1989). Another Way of Telling (1982). Cambridge: Granta Books.
Berger, John, and Jean Mohr (2010). A Seventh Man (1975). London and New York: Verso.
Browne, Vincent (1999). “Profile: Interview with Dermot Healy”. Film West 37 (July). Repr. in Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper, eds. Writing the Sky. Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy. Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive Press. 143-7.
Bruce, Nichola (2016). “Remembering Dermot Healy and I Could Read the Sky”. In Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper, eds. Writing the Sky. Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy. Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive Press. 137-42.
Dybris McQuaid, Sara (2016). “Passive Archives or Storages for Action? Storytelling Projects in Northern Ireland”. Irish Political Studies 31.1. 63-85.
Enkemann, Jürgen (1999). “Fusing Images of Memory: An Interview with Nichola Bruce”. Available at http://www.celticcafe.com/archive/Books/ogrady/hard_times.htm. Accessed 28 March 2017.
Frawley, Oona (2011). “Toward a Theory of Cultural Memory in an Irish Postcolonial Context”. In Oona Frawley, ed. Memory Ireland, Vol. 1: History and Modernity. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. 18-34.
Halbwachs, Maurice (1992). On Collective Memory. Ed. and trans. Lewis A. Coser. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Hammond, Will, and Dan Steward, eds. (2008). Verbatim, Verbatim: Contemporary Documentary Theatre. London: Oberon Books.
Healy, Dermot (1994). A Goat’s Song. London: The Harvill Press.
Healy, Dermot (1996). The Bend for Home: A Memoir. London: The Harvill Press.
Healy, Dermot (2016). The Collected Plays. Ed. Keith Hopper and Neil Murphy. Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive Press.
I Could Read the Sky (1999). Dir. Nichola Bruce. UK and Ireland: Hot Property Films. 86 mins.
Leyden, Brian (2016). “A Short History of Force 10 (A Journal of the North-West)”. In Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper, eds. Writing the Sky. Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy. Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive Press. 87-92.
McIvor, Charlotte and Emilie Pine, convenors (2017). “Roundtable: Moving Memory”. Irish University Review 47.1 (Spring/Summer), special issue “Moving Memory. The Dynamics of the Past in Irish Culture”. 165-96.
Misztal, Barbara A. (2011). “Memory and History”. In Oona Frawley, ed. Memory Ireland, Vol. 1: History and Modernity. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. 3-17.
Murphy, Sharon, ed. (2005). Stories of the Drumlins: A Collaborative Theatre Project Developed by The Abbey Theatre, Positive Age and the Health Services Executive (North East). Dublin: Outreach/Education Department of The Abbey Theatre.
O’Grady, Timothy (2015). “Timothy O’Grady on creating I Could Read the Sky, a Book for Bealtaine”. Irish Times (18 May). http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/timothy-o-grady-on-creating-i-could-read-the-sky-a-book-for-bealtaine-1.2216668. Accessed 8 June 2017.
O’Grady, Timothy (2016). “‘Only myself, said Cúnla’”. In Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper, eds. Writing the Sky. Observations and Essays on Dermot Healy. Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive Press. 16-28.
O’Grady, Timothy, and Steve Pyke (1997). I Could Read the Sky. London: The Harvill Press.
Parker, Ciaran, and Anna Sexton (2005). “The Railways of Co. Cavan”. Breffni Blue. Available at http://www.irishidentity.com/extras/wayoflife/stories/railwaysb.htm. Accessed 4 April 2017.
Pine, Emilie (2017). “Introduction: Moving Memory”. Irish University Review 47.1 (Spring/Summer), special issue “Moving Memory. The Dynamics of the Past in Irish Culture”. 1-6.
“Railways in Monaghan – Past and Present” (2003). Monaghan’s Match (December). Available at http://www.irishidentity.com/extras/heritage/stories/railways.htm. Accessed 4 April 2017.
Ricoeur, Paul (1984). Time and Narrative I (1983). Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Ricoeur, Paul (1988). Time and Narrative III (1985). Trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Soans, Robin (2005). Talking to Terrorists. London: Oberon Books.
The Writing in the Sky (2011). Dir. Garry Keane. Ireland: RTÉ. 54 mins.