THE DAUGHTERS OF RÓISÍN at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★

“There’s a real active effort to get us involved in the storytelling, and this is brilliantly effective”

Aoibh Johnson’s play, The Daughters of Róisín, explores the history of church and state abuse of women in Ireland who were pregnant out of wedlock in the 20th century. Johnson performs this one-woman show which, despite dealing with a harrowing, deeply upsetting subject matter, manages to also find a real spirit of hope for a better future.

Johnson’s play moves between monologue, storytelling, poetry recital and Irish folk songs. She stands before us, wearing a white dress, using nothing but a wooden chair and a few other minor props throughout the show. The storytelling aspect focuses on a young woman, seventeen years old, who falls pregnant from a man she meets at a dance. Young women weren’t given any education about sex, and they definitely couldn’t ask any questions.

When she speaks of the young girl’s pregnancy, she calls it her ‘sickness’. The girl is locked away at home in a room with only one window, and she mustn’t go too near it in case anyone sees her. Once the baby is born she sings to it ‘Please don’t take him away’, alternating between singing it like a lullaby to the baby which she cradles and turning it out to the audience, as if pleading, begging us to help. There’s a powerful sense of activism which comes with this, as the responsibility to protect becomes a collective one.

Amidst the anger and trauma that the situation creates, there’s also a real passion and loyalty to the land, to Ireland, and this causes a major conflict for Johnson. She sings ‘Her beauty is forlorn / It’s no longer a place that I feel free to roam’ and dreams of a future where all people of Ireland have proper freedom.

Johnson does a very clever thing to avoid the show feeling totally gloomy, by switching between telling us the story and interacting with us directly. She’s not afraid to make a joke, make us laugh, ask a question to someone in the crowd. There’s a real active effort to get us involved in the storytelling, and this is brilliantly effective at making us feel part of the change, and also at including us in the important task of remembering the women who suffered.

The final reveal, which I won’t spoil in this review, gave some extra context to the piece which made it feel particularly emotional. It’s not just a play, but a protest, and one I would encourage you to go and part of.

THE DAUGHTERS OF RÓISÍN at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Pleasance Courtyard – Bunker One

Reviewed on 17th August 2024

by Joseph Dunitz

THE DAUGHTERS OF RÓISÍN

THE DAUGHTERS OF RÓISÍN

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