<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mommo is an elderly Irish woman living with dementia, although Tom Murphy characterises her as senile. This is likely to be a reflection on both when the play is set and when it was written. Mommo lives in a small, rural cottage and is cared for by her granddaughter Mary, who is a trained nurse. Mary is fed up with her isolated lifestyle. She has little company except for Mommo who repeats the same story every night. Every so often Mary and Mommo are visited by Mary\u2019s sister Dolly, who\u2019s also trapped in the life she\u2019s created for herself. As the play opens we find all three women on the cusp of a new kind of existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dolly is pregnant and trying to convince her sister to pass the baby off as her own. Dolly\u2019s husband is working in England long term and she\u2019s having another man\u2019s child. If she can convince Mary to take responsibility for the baby before her husband returns at Christmas, he\u2019ll be none the wiser about her affairs. Mary is hoping to leave her caring responsibilities behind. She\u2019s looking forward to starting out again, independently, away from home. She\u2019s convinced that if she can get Mommo to finally finish telling her story of a laughing competition -set in the town of Bailengangaire (\u2018the town without laughter\u2019)- she\u2019ll be free of her past and able to make a fresh start elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Murphy\u2019s characterisation of Mommo is incredibly rich. The language and dialogue employed in her repeated story is particularly distinctive and it\u2019s refreshing to see such a believable and captivating portrayal of a working class, rural Irish woman. The dialogue and repetitive linguistic tics are worth reading for alone. I also really appreciated the way Murphy explores the weight and responsibility of caring for an elderly relative in a rural place. Mary\u2019s experience feels both claustrophobic and isolating and, although it would have negative implications for Mommo, it\u2019s hard not to root for her escape. Finally, I loved the humour in this play. All three women banter off each other. Mary and Dolly even use the tics in their grandmother\u2019s language to gently take the piss out of her. They can be harsh enough in how they speak to each other and yet there\u2019s a raw kind of fondness permeating their relationship. I\u2019d love a chance to see this play performed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bailegangaire was published by Methuen in 2001. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mommo is an elderly Irish woman living with dementia, although Tom Murphy characterises her as senile. This is likely to be a reflection on both when the play is set and when it was written. Mommo lives in a small, rural cottage and is cared for by her granddaughter Mary, who is a trained nurse. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,6,49,79,28,14],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-carers","tag-family","tag-irish","tag-rural","tag-theatre","tag-woman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions\/424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/dementiafiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}