Irish actor and writer Donal O’Kelly has scored a notable success with his one-man show, Fionnuala – a play based around to Corrib gasline controversy – winning a coveted Fringe First award at Edinburgh. Each year, Scotsman critics choose plays they feel are of a particularly high standard to receive the awards.
The Hot Press Newsdesk, 10 Aug 2013
Based around an incident last year in which a Shell tunnel boring machine, called Fionnuala, sank into a Mayo bog, the play tells the story of a Shell PR executive, called Ambrose Keogh, who is summoned to a midnight court in a fairy fort by Fionnuala of the Children of Lir. Fionnuala puts on a spell on Keogh, who has to tell the truth about Shell’s activities, or else he’ll be turned into a frog (for which ‘Keogh’ is the Irish word).
“It was an extremely brass neck act for Shell to name a machine for their project after a mythical figure from local folklore,†says O’Kelly. “During the play, in the course of telling the truth, Ambrose Keogh tells about an attack that took place on Willie Corduff in the Shell site in Glengad, County Mayo. So if you like, the reason I’m doing this play is to ask the question, who assaulted Willie Corduff in April 2009?â€
