{"id":596361,"date":"2026-08-17T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/596361\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T21:04:09","slug":"gaeltacht-musical-puts-life-in-irelands-nursing-homes-in-the-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/596361\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaeltacht musical puts life in Ireland’s nursing homes in the spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Seo alt \u00f3n\u00e1r bhfoireann Gaeltachta. Is f\u00e9idir an bunleagan as Gaeilge a l\u00e9amh anseo<\/a>)<\/p>\n

WHEN THE FIRST production of a new musical about life in nursing homes in the Muskerry Gaeltacht was staged at the start of the summer, many people came away saying they were going to call their parents who, as it happens, were living as residents in nursing homes.<\/p>\n

In the weeks ahead, An t\u00c9al\u00fa by Cumann L\u00e9irithe Bh\u00e9al \u00c1tha\u2019n Ghaorthaidh will be staged at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway and the Opera House in Cork.<\/p>\n

With believable characters, humour and original songs, and no shortage of emotion, this work from the pen of Se\u00e1n \u00d3g \u00d3 Duinn\u00edn succeeds in delivering a powerful reminder to audiences not to forget their loved ones in these nursing homes.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Duinn\u00edn found the inspiration for this work in his own life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started writing because of a strong independent woman inspired by my mother who passed away in March 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was at home, living independently \u2013 which was what she wanted \u2013 she was still driving, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a very brief illness and was always resolute that she did not want to go into a nursing home, that she did not want to be a burden to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had a number of conversations with people and while he had a seed of a story, he had no structure for it. \u201cThen it struck me that there was a story there about nursing homes and people working in them \u2013 there was a story on Prime Time Investigates and I said to myself, that\u2019s my story. She wants to break out of the nursing home.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe feels her independence has been taken from her, that there is no need for her to be in the nursing home.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he had a very strong view that there was mistreatment going on in some nursing homes when he started writing. \u201cI pulled back from that because it is too black and white and I didn\u2019t want to be casting aspersions on nursing homes \u2013 because they are very important as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother thing is that I have no personal experience of nursing homes and I wanted to make it somewhat grey.\u201d<\/p>\n

While doing research for the play, he found that older people escape from nursing homes because they\u2019re suffering from dementia or they\u2019re lonely or they want to regain a sense of independence as well as other reasons.<\/p>\n

The result of his work is a musical with a very strong central character, S\u00edle, living in a nursing home called Lios \u00c1lainn. Life isn\u2019t too bad for S\u00edle \u2013 there is plenty to do, chair yoga, knitting and so on, and she has friends. But she would still like her old independent life back.<\/p>\n

She makes a number of escape attempts, and this causes trouble for the nursing home staff who complain to her daughter. \u201cShe has a song that she sings, T\u00e1 Mo Shaol L\u00e1n (My Life is Full), and that is the story for many people \u2013 they are working, they have children, they have responsibilities and there is no space in their large houses or in their lives for the parent who is now in a nursing home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There is a great deal in this play that will have audiences laughing \u2013 they will be singing along with the elderly residents doing chair yoga, they will be rooting for them to manage to escape and they will have some sympathy too for the people caring for them in the nursing homes. They will even have sympathy for the adult children who put their parents into these places.<\/p>\n

The writer believes this play will prompt audiences to question the way we should be caring for our elderly. While he is not opposed to nursing homes per se, he raises the question of whether there are ways in which older people could still live independently.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have what they call \u2018sheltered living\u2019 in England and other countries but it hasn\u2019t arrived here yet,\u201d he said. Sheltered living housing offers a measure of independence for elderly residents, they have their own homes in a community but they also have support for medical conditions and other needs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tickets are still available for the production at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway <\/a>on 29 August. The musical will be staged at the Cork Opera House <\/a>on Saturday, 26 September.<\/p>\n

While the musical is performed in Irish, it is sub-titled throughout and is accompanied by a programme which can be accessed on your phone via a QR code.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Journal\u2019s Gaeltacht initiative is supported by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.<\/p>\n

This article was originally written in the reporter\u2019s native Irish and has been translated to English here. AI was used as part of the translation process before final edits.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Seo alt \u00f3n\u00e1r bhfoireann Gaeltachta. Is f\u00e9idir an bunleagan as Gaeilge a l\u00e9amh anseo) WHEN THE FIRST production…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[252561,15338,15339,61,60,43,252562,252563,252564],"class_list":["post-596361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ceol","tag-gaeilge","tag-gaeltacht","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-saol-ar-seanoiri","tag-scriobh-na-gaeilge","tag-senior-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}