Award-winning play set in the Troubles comes to Ranfurly House

An award-winning and highly- charged play about the experiences of a Garda officer and an RUC officer patrolling the border at the height of the Irish conflict will be performed in Ranfurly House on May 13.

‘Green & Blue’, produced by leading radical Belfast theatre company Kabosh, is being staged in Dungannon as part of an extended run, which will also see it performed in London and Dublin.

The play, written by former IRA hunger striker turned writer, Laurence McKeown, stars two of Ireland’s finest actors, James Doran and Vincent Higgins, reprising their roles from the original production, which premiered at the 2016 Belfast International Arts Festival.

It’s based on real life interviews with police officers, and has been shown with great acclaim to audiences of Gardai and former RUC officers and their families, as well as residencies in Prague, Brussels, Dresden and Paris, and won the award for best theatrical moment at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

It is set in 1994, months before the IRA ceasefire. At the time, the British Government were in secret peace talks with Irish republicans, while John Hume was in discussions with Gerry Adams.

Artistic director, Paula McFetridge, says ‘Green & Blue’ is as relevant as ever, particularly as the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement once again turns the spotlight on the North of Ireland

“The play depicts the time of army watchtowers, vehicle checkpoints, ‘Sniper at Work’ road signs and Wessex helicopters ferrying troops into the border areas,” she said. “The apparatus of civil conflict has been dismantled, but the six counties still remains a place apart.

In Green &Blue, James Doran plays Garda officer Eddie O’Halloran, while Vincent Higgins is David McCabe, an RUC officer whose experience of patrolling the border is vastly different from his southern counterpart.

The pair recount their experiences, taking in the history of the conflict in Ireland, how they joined their respective organisations and the day to day life of working in a disputed territory.

The play is laced with humour, insight and lots of touching moments between the two men.

Despite their different backgrounds, Eddie and David strike up a common bond and begin to learn more about themselves, their similarities as well as their differences. David’s experiences are harrowing, steeped in violence and the threat of violence, while Eddie’s are much more ordinary except for his occasional run-ins with the local IRA commander.

But, there is a brooding sense of what happens on one side of the border affects the other side.

The two areas share a mutual dependence. With that air of comradeship felt by two people doing the same job, the pair decide to meet in a farmer’s field straddling the border and find out that the ‘grass is no greener’ on the other side of this invisible divide.

The play was inspired by Diversity Challenges’ ‘Voices from the Vault’: Oral histories from former Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and An Garda Síochána officers recalling their experiences as police officers during the Irish conflict.