Watch a 'play in progress' as part of Cork city Culture Night

While playwright and actor, Irene Kelleher, says she never writes autobiographical plays, a new one that she is working on borrows from her experience of working in a Cork city bookshop.

After all, it provided some great comedic moments, such as a customer loudly asking at the counter: ‘Have you got syphilis?’ When this was met with surprise, the woman opened her bag and pulled out a note. She meant to say that she was looking for a book called Chrysalis.

Irene, who is originally from Ovens and has a Masters in drama and theatre studies from UCC, worked part-time at the former Liam Russell’s bookshop on Oliver Plunkett Street, both as a student and when she was starting her career as an actor. She felt that a bookshop would be the perfect setting for a comedy.

Footnote, a one-woman show, is told from the point of view of Noreen, a struggling writer who has been working in her local bookshop for ten years. She dreams of emulating the success of her late famous (fictional) mother, a poet and feminist activist called Genevieve de Lacy.

Living in her mother’s shadow hasn’t been easy for Noreen. Ex-boyfriends were sometimes given to quoting Genevieve in the bedroom, “a definite way to kill the ion”, says Irene. However, things are looking up for Noreen with the possibility of her first novel being published.

“She sees this as a chance to finally make a name for herself, to step out from her mother’s shadow and to be more than just a footnote.”

The odds are stacked against Noreen. Her agent (who was also Genevieve’s agent) only took Noreen on out of loyalty to her famous mother. When the agent looks at Noreen, she thinks ‘meat and two veg’ whereas her mother was ‘Beluga caviar’.

Irene recalls another customer at Liam Russell’s asking if the shop stocked a pop-up book on sex education. Then there was someone looking for a book on how to dispose of human remains.

Having a dual role as an actor and writer became necessary for Irene to progress her career. This author of six plays (including her debut Mary And Me, inspired by the Ann Lovett tragedy, and Gone Full Havisham) became disillusioned with acting when she found she was being offered roles such as that of prostitutes and rape victims. She didn’t want constant victim roles or roles that were appendages of men.

Now, Irene has a lot of control in her career and was awarded a bursary from the Cork Theatre Collective to develop Footnote.

However, while her career, which has seen her perform at the Edinburgh Festival, is on a firm footing, she wouldn’t wish a career in the arts for her daughters, Marie (two-and-a-half) and Kate (seventeen months).

“When I became a mother and I ran into people on the street, they’d say: ‘The two girls will be on the stage like their mother’. My reaction to this was horror, which was interesting to me. I was thinking, let them be in anything – except the arts.

I really love the art of what I do. But the industry and the reality of creating a sustainable life is so hard. 

"It’s not something I would love for my girls. You have to have such a thick skin. I finally understand why my poor father was always trying to push me towards a law degree. He’d say there was plenty of acting in law.

“But I started to think about my reaction to the comment about the girls going on the stage. What if you had a parent that was very successful at something and there was an expectation that you should carry on doing what they did? Out of those thoughts came the character of Noreen.”

Irene says that while she is very glad she made the decision to write as well, as act as it gives her “great agency”, she is a little tired of being asked whether she is going to start writing for other actors.

“I write parts for myself. There’s this sense that to be taken seriously as a writer, you need to write for other people. I wonder if male actor/writers are asked the same thing, people like Pat Kinevane and Mikel Murfi?

I think it’s strange that there are so many male actors who write multiple one-man shows, whereas not many women do so.

While critical of aspects of the theatre world, Irene would allow her daughters to go to drama classes if they wanted to.

“There’s great enjoyment and confidence and friendships from drama classes, even though a life in the arts for my daughters makes me feel physically ill. But I wouldn’t deprive them. In the same way, if they wanted to do sport, I’d let them do it. But I’m not going to be a stage mom.”

Now that she is a mother, Irene’s writing time “has to be planned. It’s very precious. When I have writing time, I have to get straight down to it. Because it’s time away from the girls, I feel the work has to be more meaningful. I have to get something done.”

Comedy is Irene’s first love. While Footnote is “pure comedy, I’d describe Gone Full Havisham as the darkest thing I’ve written. It’s black comedy.”

Irene has another play called Stitch which is further on in development than Footnote. It will be performed next summer in a site specific location, a shop on Shandon Street.

Thirty minutes of Footnote will be performed as a work-in-progress at Cork City Library on Culture Night (September 20).