The Story of the 1798 Rebellion

Performed by the Wolfe Tone Society, London,

The Felons, Thursday 5 August

This performance gave rise to possibly one of the strangest sights of the West Belfast festival - that of revisionist historian Ruth Dudley Edwards singing along lustily to rebel songs. She had turned up with her new best friend, Henry Robinson, latterly of FAIT, to join a rapt audience in the Felons Club on Thursday afternoon to hear in song and narrative and accompanied by projected images, the story of the 1798 Uprising.

Here I have to declare an interest ,as the members of the Wolfe Tone Society performing the play - Shelagh, Ruth, Steve, Denis, Sean, Catherine and Jenny - are dear friends and I have watched this production grow and develop into the accomplished performance which delighted those who came to see it. It was originally devised as part of the 1798 bicentenary celebrations and was first performed in November 1998 in a Brixton pub in South London, also to an enthusiastic reception. It was then that it was suggested it be made part of the West Belfast Festival. The afternoon atmosphere in the Felons was possibly a little more attentive, as the audience immersed themselves in the history of the uprising, giving the players a standing ovation at the end of the performance.

The acclaimed documentary maker and actor Kenneth Griffiths played the part of Tone himself, bringing to impassioned life some of Tone's most famous public declarations with the skill of his many years' experience. The cleverly constructed framing narrative emphasised the non-sectarianism which lay at the heart of Tone's republican ideals, and this was further symbolised by being read in a variety of voices and accents by people from differing backgrounds. Interspersed with the narrative and against an ever-changing backdrop of scenes from the uprising, maps and portraits, were songs from the period, beautifully sung, none more so than by Ruth Edwards, whose near-namesake in the audience sadly (for me at least, sitting very near to her) could not boast a similarly angelic voice.

One nationalist member of the audience - also a friend - who had ventured into the Felons for the very first time for this performance commented afterwards that he was almost grateful that his children had not been present to see and hear it. So powerful and persuasive was Tone's message and so well conveyed by the players that he felt they would have emerged from the Felons newly converted and active republicans. He could have offered no better compliment.