CHANGE by Patrick O'Laoghaire #TinyPlayChallenge

Keep your creativity flowing with Fishamble's #TinyPlayChallenge
In these challenging times, Fishamble - along with many of our colleagues in the wider Irish artistic community - is working hard to keep imaginations lively, communities engaged - and most of all offer people the opportunity of creative expression. We asked our audiences: Would you welcome the challenge of exploring your thoughts and feelings through drama? Do you have a dramatic story that you feel the urge to work out for yourself, and maybe share with your fellow citizens?
​Below is one of the chosen plays from our global submissions.


The land:

We’ve been meeting this way since centuries
You the messenger, I the sentry and there’s no ending of us, no ‘eventually ... ‘

And I love you when you’re like this-
When you’re a tender brush against my grassy wild-flowered cheek

And the light’s low over Achill and all arguments are put to rest
And you’re soft-spoken and you bring me news of the dolphins and the basking
sharks and the news from the islands and what the fish are learning in schools.

We’re a slow dance on nights like this
When you’re tender-tongued and I accept the kiss.
Yes, I love you when you’re like this,

But some nights there’s crashing eruptions-
You get all wild-tempered-hurled-insults and foam-mouthed spitting

And you lash out, throwing everything at me in one great fury
All riled up beyond taming or talking, such a change comes over you, a great
change comes

And all your affection’s gone, gone too your soft way,
And there’s nothing for it but to wait ‘til you change again

Because I love you when you’re like this, too, all overcome and beyond reason
Brutally honest and unleashed, all madness released

and no mention of why the change- no call to justify the change, there’s only
the change itself, full and felt with each wild wave-

Until you change again, and no more thought’s given.
Stoic, I, the land, and you, the sea, forgiven.

The sea:

You who watches the changes in me
Sure we’ve been meeting this way since centuries
You, stood there at the beginning and the end of me, unconditionally

You the resolute listener and I the sweet-talker that has you doe-eyed
listening to the lapping sound of me

Bringing you the news from the islands, and the singing of the shoals
Softly telling you the depth of me and the many tears wept in me

And to hear in turn, the news of the cattle and the wild-flowers
The roots of the tree-talk and the fairies and the field-hours

Exchange of the scent of the gorse
for cooling your rock-face with glistening fan
Our mutual-ness understood

And I love to be this way with you
and each time this way I swear I’ll remain
But then the change comes over me again

And my blue eyes roll wild and I roll wild against you
And everything is shattered and cast against you
And I’ve killed men this way, I’ve broken ships and I’ve broken bits of you

In my surges of anger I’ve risen up and flung everything at you
Blind howling, pure aggression, all changed, a great change,
Brutal and baying, unprovoked, stoked by some signal I can’t control

And all my affection’s gone, gone too thesoft way,
Gone the sentiment, gone the sweetness of the day, all changed

And the deep belly of me rumbles and bared-teethed I fight you
And spite you and I forget everything we agreed upon before.
Turned against you and railing, until I exhaust myself into slumber and rest–

Gentle, soft crest and changed again, beyond heroic.
Forgiven, I, the sea, and you, the land, stoic

The bird:

Witness, I, to their history,
The stoic land and the changing sea.




Of late, Patrick is living down west, looking across the water at Clare Island and Inisturk. He loves to play the piano and to sing. He's been living a long time before now, in a city, which it seems wasn't the right place for him at all. Patrick loves the sound and the feeling of laughter. He has a big grá for the sea. He was a hurling man for a long time. He is trying to learn the difference between a robins and a wrens song. He managed to set the baby potatoes on fire making the dinner today. Find Patrick on instagram @ihaveatribe. 

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