Kate Yo ✒ They would be willing to sacrifice small lives for great reputations." - Chris Mullan to Paddy Armstrong. In Life after Life.


There is no prison play or production that does not show how the human spirit can soar.

Gerry Conlon embodied this spirit both in jail and out of it. What came across as Gerry's nervous energy was a lust after the truth to clear his name, and his daddy's name. This play takes up where the film ends. This is Gerry's story on the outside and it is told warts and all.

A young man from Peel Street, the Lower Falls, just out of prison after seventeen years. With plenty of money in his pocket, he was thrust upon the world stage where he was lifted shoulder high. Gerry insisted he walk out the front door a free man after a miscarriage of justice. Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson left by a back exit to avoid the world's media. Is it any wonder that his life became tumultuous?

It's a funny thing freedom writes Paddy Armstrong, I've thought about it every day for the last fifteen years, missed it, craved it and nearly died for it, and now that I have it I have no idea what to do with it. And so they partied. Their lives were adrift, out of control, with no moorings.

The play shows the partying having this tumultuous effect by assaulting the senses. It used strobe lighting and loud sound to create an almost psychedelic effect. A bare stage except for a metal bed with a small Wall behind it. The stage remains this way all through the two hour show, yet Shaun Blaney was able to hold the attention of an audience all the way through this show.

Blaney gave a brilliant solo performance that took his audience from Belfast to Dublin, to the Oscars and to Portsmouth where Gerry got clean off drugs. In addition to this, Blaney played many parts: Gerry and his nervous energy, his mother Sara and many other characters.

Gerry wants a film made of their story and he goes about trying to make that happen. This takes him on a huge journey where he acts as a consultant in the film. There's a lot of banter in it, with people such as Daniel Day Lewis, who came to Belfast and followed Gerry around to get the accent right, and Gerry through Blaney claims that Daniel never tasted poverty food until he came to Gerry's ma's house.

There is a scene where Gerry is at the Oscars and he doesn't realise it would be fours long. He gets impatient, so he goes to the gents where he holds court with all the famous faces. He banters with them all. Liam Neeson, Johnny Depp and a full room  - it's felt you are in the gents there with them. His film won seven Oscars and lifted sixty five million dollars at the box office. But Gerry just couldn't sit still. Not for four hours.

Another scene is where a car load of them stop on the road and the banter leads all involved to reenact scenes from The Quiet Man. Blaney pulls this off on his own, and he does it magnificently, just like he did in Stones In His Pocket. You meet Daniher, and Maureen O Hara, and you go to the race with them, and hear the music from the film.

That's a lot to pull off for one person - and to top it all off he looked like Gerry!!

This play is based on Ricky O'Rawes book. I haven't read it so I'm sure there's more to the story or even a better understanding of it, if I'd read the book. The three of them Gerry, Martin Lynch and Ricky O'Rawe met for drinks and were invited to attend Martins plays. Later, Martin Lynch was asked by Gerry if he would take his dad's old letters and turn them into a stage play. The letters never materialised, so they based the show on Ricky's book.

Martin Lynch in the show's programme tells of meeting Mrs Conlon at Cyprus Street Advice Centre and boasts he was probably the first person to write the name Gerry Conlon in a ledger. This is where arrangements were made for Gerry's daddy to go to London to get him a solicitor.

Paddy Armstrong also wrote of Gerry in his book Life After Life and there's an interesting story behind it. They meet each other on the wing after Paddy had been voluntarily removed to the block. Paddy was having a bad time. He'd asked to go to the block, his mood was very low. This energy that Gerry had enabled him to push on and Paddy wasn't doing so good. He had just come out of the block which he had asked for but he felt like he could have stayed on. There is some evidence in the book that Armstrong may have suffered a nervous break down. Gerry's wrote of Paddy in his own book that Armstrong had a pale prison pallor that some men get. He didn't recognise Paddy that day on the wing, in Gartree maximum security jail, some of the Balkan street ASU were also housed there. However he didn't recognise Paddy: Gerry it's me. Paddy! They embraced and clung to each other. Paddy wants to say are you drowning too my friend . . .  or is it just me? But instead he says I'm great Gerry, happy to see you. 

Before going to the block, Armstrong and another prisoner were at odds, and Paddy was in his sights, so much so that Paddy was warned by others that this guy had him in his sights and for Paddy to get in there first. So a boiling bucket of water was produced and mixed with plenty of sugar for it to stick. It was poured by Armstrong over the other prisoner and then Armstrong gave him a few wallops of a sock with a battery in it. This resolved the issue but it upset Paddy so he asked to go to the blocks. On Armstrong's first day back on the wing he spotted Gerry who didn't recognise him. According to Armstrong there was a difference to Gerry: he was still the same person but stronger, not beat down, It was the first that Paddy had seen him since their appeal was lost eleven years earlier and eight years from Gerry lost his dad.

While they both worked as consultants on the film Armstrong had told Gerry about Goa. A prisoner that Paddy knew told him all about it, and in turn Paddy told Gerry all about it. And so, off they both went to Goa. When they came back to Dublin rejoining the film crew, the three police officers Vernon Atwell, Thomas Style and John Donaldson, that fabricated their confessions and wrecked four innocent lives were in the dock In the Old Bailey where they were cleared of all charges.

Blaney tells us that £240,000 was gone through in nine months. The British government paid compensation in three instalments. 

In one scene Gerry is in Portsmouth where he went to rid himself of drugs and there is a farewell scene between Gerry and a lady friend. This scene is very moving and music from back then was played to a hushed audience. 

Blaney's women characters are something to behold. All of the women smoking, sounds of the frying pan cooking, sounds of the rain, the gestures, portrayed perfectly! Blaney brought Gerry and his wee mammy Sara back to life, like they'd risen up and returned to tell this tale.


When the roller coaster lives ended, Blaney as Gerry returns us to Belfast, back to look after his mother. He is dealt a hard hand getting cancer himself. Mum says to Gerry you haven't spoken your father's name to me in fifteen years, say it. And Blaney does, over and over. Here Gerry learns of his own daughter. She called him daddy. He loves being called daddy.

Daddy.

Kate Yo is a Belfast book lover.

In The Name Of The Son

Kate Yo ✒ They would be willing to sacrifice small lives for great reputations." - Chris Mullan to Paddy Armstrong. In Life after Life.


There is no prison play or production that does not show how the human spirit can soar.

Gerry Conlon embodied this spirit both in jail and out of it. What came across as Gerry's nervous energy was a lust after the truth to clear his name, and his daddy's name. This play takes up where the film ends. This is Gerry's story on the outside and it is told warts and all.

A young man from Peel Street, the Lower Falls, just out of prison after seventeen years. With plenty of money in his pocket, he was thrust upon the world stage where he was lifted shoulder high. Gerry insisted he walk out the front door a free man after a miscarriage of justice. Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson left by a back exit to avoid the world's media. Is it any wonder that his life became tumultuous?

It's a funny thing freedom writes Paddy Armstrong, I've thought about it every day for the last fifteen years, missed it, craved it and nearly died for it, and now that I have it I have no idea what to do with it. And so they partied. Their lives were adrift, out of control, with no moorings.

The play shows the partying having this tumultuous effect by assaulting the senses. It used strobe lighting and loud sound to create an almost psychedelic effect. A bare stage except for a metal bed with a small Wall behind it. The stage remains this way all through the two hour show, yet Shaun Blaney was able to hold the attention of an audience all the way through this show.

Blaney gave a brilliant solo performance that took his audience from Belfast to Dublin, to the Oscars and to Portsmouth where Gerry got clean off drugs. In addition to this, Blaney played many parts: Gerry and his nervous energy, his mother Sara and many other characters.

Gerry wants a film made of their story and he goes about trying to make that happen. This takes him on a huge journey where he acts as a consultant in the film. There's a lot of banter in it, with people such as Daniel Day Lewis, who came to Belfast and followed Gerry around to get the accent right, and Gerry through Blaney claims that Daniel never tasted poverty food until he came to Gerry's ma's house.

There is a scene where Gerry is at the Oscars and he doesn't realise it would be fours long. He gets impatient, so he goes to the gents where he holds court with all the famous faces. He banters with them all. Liam Neeson, Johnny Depp and a full room  - it's felt you are in the gents there with them. His film won seven Oscars and lifted sixty five million dollars at the box office. But Gerry just couldn't sit still. Not for four hours.

Another scene is where a car load of them stop on the road and the banter leads all involved to reenact scenes from The Quiet Man. Blaney pulls this off on his own, and he does it magnificently, just like he did in Stones In His Pocket. You meet Daniher, and Maureen O Hara, and you go to the race with them, and hear the music from the film.

That's a lot to pull off for one person - and to top it all off he looked like Gerry!!

This play is based on Ricky O'Rawes book. I haven't read it so I'm sure there's more to the story or even a better understanding of it, if I'd read the book. The three of them Gerry, Martin Lynch and Ricky O'Rawe met for drinks and were invited to attend Martins plays. Later, Martin Lynch was asked by Gerry if he would take his dad's old letters and turn them into a stage play. The letters never materialised, so they based the show on Ricky's book.

Martin Lynch in the show's programme tells of meeting Mrs Conlon at Cyprus Street Advice Centre and boasts he was probably the first person to write the name Gerry Conlon in a ledger. This is where arrangements were made for Gerry's daddy to go to London to get him a solicitor.

Paddy Armstrong also wrote of Gerry in his book Life After Life and there's an interesting story behind it. They meet each other on the wing after Paddy had been voluntarily removed to the block. Paddy was having a bad time. He'd asked to go to the block, his mood was very low. This energy that Gerry had enabled him to push on and Paddy wasn't doing so good. He had just come out of the block which he had asked for but he felt like he could have stayed on. There is some evidence in the book that Armstrong may have suffered a nervous break down. Gerry's wrote of Paddy in his own book that Armstrong had a pale prison pallor that some men get. He didn't recognise Paddy that day on the wing, in Gartree maximum security jail, some of the Balkan street ASU were also housed there. However he didn't recognise Paddy: Gerry it's me. Paddy! They embraced and clung to each other. Paddy wants to say are you drowning too my friend . . .  or is it just me? But instead he says I'm great Gerry, happy to see you. 

Before going to the block, Armstrong and another prisoner were at odds, and Paddy was in his sights, so much so that Paddy was warned by others that this guy had him in his sights and for Paddy to get in there first. So a boiling bucket of water was produced and mixed with plenty of sugar for it to stick. It was poured by Armstrong over the other prisoner and then Armstrong gave him a few wallops of a sock with a battery in it. This resolved the issue but it upset Paddy so he asked to go to the blocks. On Armstrong's first day back on the wing he spotted Gerry who didn't recognise him. According to Armstrong there was a difference to Gerry: he was still the same person but stronger, not beat down, It was the first that Paddy had seen him since their appeal was lost eleven years earlier and eight years from Gerry lost his dad.

While they both worked as consultants on the film Armstrong had told Gerry about Goa. A prisoner that Paddy knew told him all about it, and in turn Paddy told Gerry all about it. And so, off they both went to Goa. When they came back to Dublin rejoining the film crew, the three police officers Vernon Atwell, Thomas Style and John Donaldson, that fabricated their confessions and wrecked four innocent lives were in the dock In the Old Bailey where they were cleared of all charges.

Blaney tells us that £240,000 was gone through in nine months. The British government paid compensation in three instalments. 

In one scene Gerry is in Portsmouth where he went to rid himself of drugs and there is a farewell scene between Gerry and a lady friend. This scene is very moving and music from back then was played to a hushed audience. 

Blaney's women characters are something to behold. All of the women smoking, sounds of the frying pan cooking, sounds of the rain, the gestures, portrayed perfectly! Blaney brought Gerry and his wee mammy Sara back to life, like they'd risen up and returned to tell this tale.


When the roller coaster lives ended, Blaney as Gerry returns us to Belfast, back to look after his mother. He is dealt a hard hand getting cancer himself. Mum says to Gerry you haven't spoken your father's name to me in fifteen years, say it. And Blaney does, over and over. Here Gerry learns of his own daughter. She called him daddy. He loves being called daddy.

Daddy.

Kate Yo is a Belfast book lover.

4 comments:

  1. In the name of the son is a great read, superbly written by Richard o Rawe, as is Blanketmen and Afterlives. Gerry Conlon was a tortured soul.
    I met him in Australia on tour with Paddy Hill. How could any of us fathom the injustice these two totally innocent men went through, along with the others in Guilford 4 and the Birmingham 6. Not forgetting the Maguire family, and countless others as well. I will never forget that footage when he was finally released in 1989 . He spoke out against miscarriages of justice all over the word, indeed one of his last public outings was at an appeal by the Craigavon 2. Taken way too soon . RIP

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  2. This is playing at the Edinburgh Festival. Definitely going to go.

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  3. A must read for anyone who advocates bringing back hanging ...innocents would have and will die

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  4. I went to see the play this week. Not much I can add to the review here, except if you're in Edinburgh, make sure you see it.

    Stunning performance from Shaun Blaney, and as noted in this review, very effective use of music. The Happy Mondays as a backdrop to Gerry's crack-house days was evocative. The lights and effects were great too.

    An hour and twenty minutes went by very quickly, and the play deserved the standing ovation that it got.

    I spotted Mark Thomas at the sound desk afterwards - no idea if he's involved or not, but I think he had something to do with MoJo - but maybe he was just coming to see the show.

    Absolutely brilliant.

    ReplyDelete