Drama behind marching season headlines

Gary Mitchell: Writing plays to tell Protestant stories

By BBC News Online's Concubhar O'Liathain

While the drama of Northern Ireland's marching season unfolds on the streets, the story behind the headlines of what is a long-running and often bitter political controversy, is being told in a Belfast theatre.

Gary Mitchell, the award-winning author of Marching On, wrote the play because of what he felt was the failure to tell the full story.

He partly blames the unwillingness of Protestants to tell their side of the story for the one-sided nature of coverage.

"Members of my community seem to prefer to sit and whine about how unfairly they are treated," he said.

Ever since he began his writing career in his late 20s, the 35-year-old working-class Protestant from the loyalist Rathcoole housing estate in north Belfast has seen it as his responsibility to write rather than whine.

For his version of the Troubles, he's been accused of being a "Protestant playwright for a Protestant people", an ironic echo of a famous quote from a past Northern Ireland prime minister, and of pandering to the nationalist agenda.

He has also won a number of awards. A play about the effect of policing reforms on the men and women of the Royal Ulster Constabulary recently completed a run in London's Royal Court theatre.

Force of Change earned Gary Mitchell the prestigious George Devine award, a title which has been won by writers from Ireland for five of the last six years.

But it is more important to the writer, who taught him self the basics of his craft after leaving school at the age of 16, to present the story of his community to the world.

It's very easy to demonise unionists

Gary Mitchell

His latest play about the annual marching season in Northern Ireland, tackles a difficult weave of topics, Orangeism, loyalism and the RUC.

Behind the labels, which Mitchell believes are too easily applied, are human beings.

The three main characters in the play are an interesting triangle, each wanting to help the other but in reality tearing the structure asunder.

The elderly Orangeman is appalled at both the opposition to the way he expresses his culture and the vehemence of loyalist hangers-on who seem to use the parades issue as a means of heightening tension between the two communities.

His grandson is a teenager, full of the anger of youth and anxious to prove himself as a "hard-man" to his friends.

He petrol-bombs the cars of a residents' group who are opposing a march in which his grandfather is participating.

Placed in the middle by the writer is an RUC man, the father of the teenager and the son of the Orangeman.

His priorities are to ensure the parade goes ahead without violence but the play demonstrates the tensions faced by many police officers in similar no-win situations throughout Northern Ireland.

Loyalists confront the RUC at Drumcree

The writer admits the Orange Order had little or no relevance for him as he grew up in Rathcoole.

"It seemed to me that attendances at 12 July parades were going down all the time," he said, referring to the end of 80s and the start of the 90s.

He or his friends had no interest in joining the organisation or even supporting it.

He believes the opposition to Orange Order parades by residents' groups on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown and in north Belfast, galvanised loyalists to support the organisation which, through its marches, represented the most public display of Protestant culture.

Universal themes

As well as having the Northern Irish political edge, the playwright says he wants his work to reflect universal themes; the difficult relationship between the three generations, the caution of age against the impatience of youth.

While Marching On ends rather bleakly for the Protestant family at its centre, he believes the issue of contentious marches may eventually be resolved through a greater understanding by both sides of the other's position.

Having written plays which have been successfully produced in Belfast, Dublin and London, he is now preparing to bring his hard-edged writing to television, cinema and internet audiences.

Armed with a video camera and a non-linear editing system on his computer, he feels the time has come to counter the cartoon images of Protestants which feature in Hollywood movies about the Troubles.

Resurection Man, a gruesome film about the Shankill Butchers, a gang of loyalists who savagely murdered Catholics during the 1970s, is one such film which uses broad brush strokes to paint his community in an unfavourable light.

Another film, The Boxer, which starred Daniel Day Lewis, also attracts the wrath of Mitchell because it similarily fails to understand the complexities of the situation in Northern Ireland.

"It's very easy to demonise the unionist community," he says.

Bowler hats and silken sashes are easy to draw. Musclebound paramilitary types with "For God and Ulster" tattooed on their arms is another favourite cliche image to depict the typical loyalist.

Sometimes the truth hurts, sometimes it's great

Gary Mitchell

While it may not be easy to break into television or the movies with his home-made movies, the possibility of using the internet intrigues him.

And it is not out of the question that the insightful writing which has finally given voice to the stories of his community, may not bring it from the stage to the big screen or even a pc near you.

His unflinching style may not make him popular in some quarters - but he's prepared to take his chances by writing what he feels is the truth.

"Sometimes the truth hurts, sometimes it's great," he says simply.