Here is a NEW Interview with Laura Donnelly from The New York Times
From The New York Times:
Police checkpoints in the street. Helicopters overhead around the clock. The necessity, in certain parts of town, to give a fake last name if anyone asked, because her real last name would tip them off that she was Roman Catholic.
To the actress Laura Donnelly, growing up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles, these were simply facts of life. So was the absence of her uncle Eugene Simons, who vanished on New Year’s Day 1981 — murdered by the Irish Republican Army, his body hidden in a bog.
More after the jump!
“He had three children and another one on the way,” she said over coffee recently in Hell’s Kitchen. “He was 26. My mum was pregnant with me.”
Look very closely and you might glimpse a childhood photo of Mr. Simons on the Broadway set of “The Ferryman,” a play that Ms. Donnelly’s partner, Jez Butterworth, wrote for her.
Five years ago, they watched a documentary called “The Disappeared,” about the victims of a particularly cruel campaign by the I.R.A.: secret murders of supposed traitors, whose families kept hoping that they were still alive somewhere.
When her uncle’s face flashed on the screen, Ms. Donnelly — who knew that his body had been discovered in 1984, and that her mother had worked with families of the disappeared, yet hadn’t quite put two and two together — realized for the first time that he had been one of them.
“Anyone, I think, from the north of Ireland would understand what I mean when I say that I knew and didn’t know,” she said. “It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t discussed. There’s a saying that Seamus Heaney quotes in one of his poems, which is ‘Whatever you say, say nothing.’”
I understand “The Ferryman” has earned raving reviews! Such a tragic time in the history of Ireland. Laura Donnelly is a superb actress. I hope that “The Ferryman” comes to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Wonderfully written article. I was born in England and remember seeing on the TV all the news broadcasts of the violence in Northern Ireland. This play has done a wonderful job of making people realize what a terrible time the Irish People had to live through during that period of their history.