MEDIEVAL WEXFORD AND THE OPERA FESTIVAL

 Ever thought of attending an elite opera festival in an historic medieval town less than 2 hours from Dublin? 

I’m referring to Wexford in the sunny South-East where history seems to ooze from the very stones. Originally a Viking settlement (Weissfjord), the Normans conquered it in 1169 and added their trademark battlements, still visible today.

King Henry II soon arrived at the newly constructed Selskar Abbey, eager to do penance for the “murder in the cathedral” of Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury. 

Oliver Cromwell sacked the town and slaughtered the inhabitant but, undaunted, Wexfordians rose up against the might of the British Empire in 1798. 

Charles Stewart Parnell was sentenced to a stint in Kilmainham Jail for a seditious speech he delivered from the window of Wexford’s Imperial Hotel.

You get the idea – one bloody thing after another!

I grew up in the shadow of Selskar Abbey, still a towering, if skeletal, castle-cum-monastery. Hence, I was delighted to attend the recent Wexford Opera Festival after a long absence.

Wexford has changed – for the better. The old Theatre Royal has been transformed into the  stunning National Opera House, while the Town Hall, where I used to play dances for battling gangs of Teddy Boys, has morphed into the gleaming Wexford Arts Centre.

Culture was everywhere during my stay. Three fully produced operas were in repertory over the 15 day festival. The singers, musicians and creative teams were of the highest international quality, and the audiences came from all over Europe.

Events began early and continued through the day with many pop-up shows and recitals held in churches, halls and pubs. The discerning locals took it all in their stride. They’ve had plenty of experience for this was the 73^rd Wexford Opera Festival. 

Coincidentally, the festival founder, Dr. Tom Walsh, lived two doors down the street from where I grew up. He was a lovely man who turned an impossible dream into reality.

There are other changes afoot about the town. In my day, the narrow back streets throbbed with life, people raised large families in small houses. But Wexford’s citizens now prefer to live outside town in modern residences on individual plots of land.

Wexford Borough District is encouraging prospective homeowners to consider the many vacant houses on the quaint back streets. It is possible to buy one of these properties for under €200K. There is even talk of grants being offered. 

What a location to retire to! With Ireland’s modern network of roads, it’s possible to drive to any part of the country within a day, bus services are excellent, and nearby Rosslare Harbour has regular ferries departing for the UK, France and Spain.

If Wexford has changed, so has Ireland, now a staunch liberal European democracy.

Swept away is the unhealthy power of the Catholic Church, along with its dominance in all facets of life.

The young are well educated and full of confidence. Though they are fond of America and its culture, their world now is more in tune with the EU, UK, Canada and Australia.

Our nativists have won the day. There is little talk of emigration to the US anymore, instead young Irish visit for sun-drenched vacations. It’s not worth the hassle to scale the walls  of our shining city on the hill, now that the ladders have been pulled up. Better go somewhere they’re welcome.

Besides, politicians are held to account in Ireland. Fact-checking is not optional and lying is frowned upon. There are problems, of course, the national health system, though universal, has many flaws, including long delays for certain operations and medical procedures.

Social media – as elsewhere – is becoming a problem. Conspiracy theories are bubbling up, but so far they’re not a match for Ireland’s strong press, not to mention  most Irish people are still comfortable sharing the same set of facts.

Perhaps these differences between Ireland and the US could be the subject of a modern farcical opera. Speaking of which, anyone fancy attending  the 2025 Wexford Opera Festival? Wexfordopera.com

And if your candidate lost last week’s presidential election, perhaps you’d be interested in a bargain house near the walls of a medieval town less than two hours from Dublin?

DOMINIC BEHAN - WORKING CLASS HERO

“There’s only room for one genius in this family!” Brendan Behan is reputed to have remarked to Dominic, his younger brother.

While Dominic Behan may not be as well-known as Brendan, it would be hard to argue that he is not his equal in sheer creativity.

However, Brendan was correct when he stated, “No matter what you do, you’ll always be known as Brendan Behan’s brother.”

Dommo was so much more than that. He wrote The Patriot Game, perhaps the greatest protest song. Simple and to the point, it was sparked by the death of Fergal O’Hanlon, during an attack on Brookeborough RUC barracks on January 1, 1957.

There was nothing simple about Dominic Behan. He was raised Republican and at an early age joined Na Fianna Éireann, a radical boy-scouts group.

While all the Behans were of a socialist bent, Dominic veered even further left and was much involved in trade union politics.

Both he and Brendan left school in their early teens and followed their father Stephen into the sign-painting trade. We get an early character portrayal of the brothers when a foreman complained to Stephen, “They are the greatest bastards I’ve ever come across. One wants the men to strike for an incentive bonus so that the other one can bring them down the pub to drink it.”

After a prison stay for his radical activities, Dominic quit Ireland for the green fields of the UK. In Glasgow he fell in with the poet, Hugh MacDiarmid, and in short order fell in love with and married Josephine Quinn, his equal in radicalism.

In London he came under the influence of Ewan McColl, and like Luke Kelly was greatly influenced by the writer of Dirty Old Town and First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. McColl introduced him to the BBC where Dominic turned out scripts for short radio plays. 

Posterity Be Damned, his first play for theatre, was a hit - to his famous brother’s chagrin - but though Dominic too was a drinker, neither booze nor illness affected his productivity. He wrote over 400 songs, many of which are standards: Come Out Ye Black and Tans, Dicey Reilly, McAlpine’s Fusiliers, The Merry Ploughboy, The Sea Around Us, Take It Down From The Mast...

The list goes on. Even just considering those six songs, you can see his range was wide: politics, partying, emigration, dislocation, and the inner life of working class heroes. If Post World War Two Working Class Ireland is your passion, you don’t need to spend time and money at university, Dommo’s songs explore the subject in a granular and entertaining fashion.

He believed that a song is not a museum piece, it should be added to and amended so that it retains relevance. One of my favorite verses of Carrickfergus is the one that begins:

“They say of life, and it has been written,
One chance you’re granted, that chance I lost.
The sands of time have long run out on me,
Ah, but it's too late now to count the cost...”

Yeah, you guessed it, Dommo wrote that verse, and helped to popularize the old song that he first heard actor Peter O’Toole sing.

But to me, it all comes back to Patriot Game, written while still in his twenties. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime indictment that captures all the years of striving for a united Ireland and measures the cost of that still elusive dream.

Behan was unusually protective of Patriot Game. He disapproved of Liam Clancy’s magisterial interpretation, because of the Carrick-on-Suir man’s decision to leave out his criticism of the Gardaí Síochána and the scathing reference to the then divine Taoiseach:

“They say de Valera is partly to blame

For shirking his part in the patriot game.”

But his main beef was with Bob Dylan who appropriated melody and content for his own masterpiece, With God On Our Side. When Dylan suggested that their lawyers could sort out the matter, Dommo replied that “I’ve got two lawyers hanging at the ends of my wrists who’ll do my talking for me.”

A friend of Jimi Hendrix and Eric Burdon, a huge influence on The Dubliners and Christy Moore, Dominic Behan could be quarrelsome and burned many bridges, especially when drinking.

Genius or not, he has left his fiery mark on Irish life and songwriting.