{"id":360697,"date":"2026-03-27T09:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T09:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/360697\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T09:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T09:06:07","slug":"theres-a-spiritual-feeling-about-ireland-you-dont-get-in-other-places-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/360697\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There\u2019s a spiritual feeling about Ireland you don\u2019t get in other places\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was born in London<\/a> of Irish<\/a> parents. My mum was also born in London, but her dad was from Indreabh\u00e1n in Galway<\/a>, and her mum was from near Thurles, in Tipperary<\/a>. My grandad was a native Irish speaker. He was actually a twin. In the west of Ireland, whoever was born first got the land, so because his twin brother was born first, he had a title right. My grandad went to London and lived over there. He was a fireman in the second World War.<\/p>\n

My dad was from Wexford town. He was an emigrant in the late 1950s. He went to England, met my mum, and I was born there. I have three brothers. My dad was very into making sure that we knew we were Irish. In the Five Nations rugby, as it was then, we always followed Ireland. Irishness was really injected into us.<\/p>\n

We moved back to Wexford town when I was nine. It was kind of a shock to the system. In London, I was in a mixed school. When I came to Ireland I went to the Christian Brothers, which was quite austere, compared to London. But I did like it, and I made lots of friends. <\/p>\n

I remember when learning Irish, instead of beidh m\u00e9, I wrote beg m\u00e9 and the Christian Brother ridiculed me in front of everyone. But I\u2019m quite a defiant person and I really got into the Irish. I got really good at it in primary school and got a good grade, ultimately, in the Leaving Cert. Maybe it was because I had it in the blood from my mum.<\/p>\n

In college I did a business degree, which I wasn\u2019t really suited to, so I took a year out, and got involved in a theatre company in Wexford. Then I didn\u2019t get back into college, so I continued working for that theatre company. There was a government scheme they had at the time, Anco, so I did that.<\/p>\n

There was a pub in Wexford called the Imperial, and I used to go in there sometimes. Billy Roche was in a band, and I used to see him onstage. He was involved in a theatre company, doing a play by Woody Guthrie. That\u2019s where, theatrically, I met him.<\/p>\n

Billy\u2019s first play was called the The Boker Poker Club; it became A Handful of Stars<\/a>. I did that in Wexford and then it was taken on by the Bush Theatre in London. Myself, Aidan Gillen and Dervla Kirwan went over. From that, I got an agent and ended up back living in London for a while.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0From the archive: Billy Roche: Dreamer without the angstOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve gone on to do quite a few Billy Roche Plays \u2013 the Wexford Trilogy, The Cavalcaders. I love playing Billy\u2019s characters. I think he\u2019s a very subtle, interesting writer. I can connect to his work, the way he tells stories.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve set up a theatre company around where I live in Roscommon. I was looking to do a play, and Billy Roche\u2019s Of Mornington came along. It\u2019s a three-hander. There was a part for a young actor, and my son, James, did the reading for it. He fit it well. I\u2019m looking forward to working with my son onstage, as well as S\u00edofra O\u2019Meara<\/a>, an interesting up-and-coming actress.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s quite a full-circle poignancy about the fact that my son is the same age I was when I went to London. I think it\u2019s a great gift for him to be working with someone like Billy, because he\u2019s very nurturing. Things I would have learned from him, and the director, Robin le Fevre, like naturalism, not over-acting, and just being true, have kept me going throughout my career. I think it\u2019s important when you\u2019re early in your career to work with good people. Also, Billy\u2019s a very kind person. I know Aidan Gillen would say the same \u2013 anyone who\u2019s worked with Billy would say the same.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Aidan Gillen: \u2018Acting is like you are living 20 lives. It\u2019s a bit of an addiction\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Irish people have great passion and emotion. We\u2019re poetic as well. We\u2019ve always had it, but because of young people coming up like Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Cillian Murphy who are of global fame, people are taking notice.<\/p>\n

Things like The Complex closing down in Dublin are really disappointing. I don\u2019t think the Government is doing enough in that respect. It\u2019s all very well talking about Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, but you\u2019ve got to start from the ground up, and nurture people, especially young people. If not, they\u2019re just going to go: I can\u2019t do this. <\/p>\n

The film I\u2019m shooting at the moment is interesting. It\u2019s called The Sandy Banks. It\u2019s by a writer\/director called Tony O\u2019Donnell. He\u2019s only 27. He\u2019s got a really big future ahead of him. We\u2019re down here in Belmullet, on the edge of Europe. People like Tony need to be supported and nurtured as artists. It\u2019s a different thing than going to do medicine. Artists need time. It\u2019s not always: do a job, get the money.<\/p>\n

I think Ireland\u2019s a really special place. It\u2019s hard to put into words. I probably think of it a bit poetically, but I feel there\u2019s a special holiness or something about Ireland. It\u2019s a spiritual feeling, like when you\u2019re driving up by the C\u00e9ide Fields, that you don\u2019t get other places in the world. Maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m from here.<\/p>\n

In conversation with Niamh Donnelly. This interview, part of a series about well-known people\u2019s lives and relationship with Ireland, was edited for clarity and length. Gary Lydon stars in Of Mornington by Billy Roche, directed by Peter McCamley, at Wexford Arts Centre, April 2nd-4th, and Smock Alley Theatre, April 14th-18th. wexfordartscentre.ie<\/a>; smockalley.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was born in London of Irish parents. My mum was also born in London, but her dad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,398,146,56829,85,46,28402,442,1619,143031,17404,142465],"class_list":{"0":"post-360697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-cillian-murphy","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-galway","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-jessie-buckley","15":"tag-london","16":"tag-magazine","17":"tag-me-myself-and-ireland","18":"tag-paul-mescal","19":"tag-wexford"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}