Innovative show captures a story at the very heart of Clonmel

One of Clonmel’s most innovative theatrical productions ever was staged over six nights to spell-bound audiences – innovative not just because of its storyline but also its magical setting.

Kickham Barracks has a famed legacy in Clonmel. Its history spans over two hundred and fifty years, through world wars and rebellions, to peace-keeping and up to its untimely and unwarranted closure ten years ago.
So where better to stage a dramatic musical on its story than in the heart of the barracks itself.
Kickham Barracks today is developing many new uses but its parade ground and Officers Mess remain in situ and they provided the stunning setting and backdrop for From Out The Land, a Clonmel Junction Arts Festival production, produced by Clonmel native and Junction Festival artistic director, Cliona Maher, and featuring an array of highly talented actors, singers and musicians, as well as a local musical Citizen Ensemble who helped to bring the story up to the present day.
Writer and director was another Clonmel native, Jack Reardon, whose talent was in managing two centuries of history into two hours on stage.

Funding from an Arts Council initiative, Open Call, designed to aid productions linked to the Decade of Centenaries, facilitated the production – one of the largest ever in Clonmel, with 140 people involved, between on-stage and back-stage.

FABRIC OF THE TOWN
From Out The Land traces the story of Kickham Barracks, as much an integral part of the town’s fabric as the Main Guard and the West Gate, from the start of World War One when hundreds of local young men, sons of shopkeepers and farmers, joined the British Army to fight in the fields of France; to the barracks’ proud record of providing soldiers for the United Nations peacekeeping duties in Africa and the Middle East; up to the recent past when the people of Clonmel, primarily wives and partners of serving soldiers, took to the streets, including visits to Leinster House, in an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to keep it open under a threat of ‘rationalisation’.
It's a detailed storyline, but From Out The Land is described as a Kickham Barracks story rather than the Kickham Barracks story.

DRAMATIC MASTERPIECE
The success of the production is how the different strands, from 1914, to the 1960s, to the mid 2002s, are seamlessly woven together in a dramatic masterpiece. It’s a tribute to producer Cliona Maher and her production team, to writer and director Jack Reardon, and co-writer Aine Ryan, how they have brought this story, centring on one of Clonmel’s most revered institutions, into a stunning two-hour pageant of drama, music and dance.

Joining the army as raw recruits to fight bloody battles at the Somme, and other French killing fields, was no cause for laughter, but we smiled at the innocence of local lads, William Power (Cathal Ryan) and Padraig Treacy (Darragh Shannon) as they signed up to enlist – Power lying about his age to ensure he was chosen, wondering would France would very different from his native Grangemockler, and joking with Treacy that they would defy orders and bring their hurleys with them to war and be back home by Christmas, job done.

But as the audience knew, and they eventually found out, the grim realities weren’t like that as they saw comrades die. And it got worse with family entanglements and finally, when they returned from France, getting involved in different sides of the Civil War in their home country.
Cathal Ryan and Darragh Shannon were superb in the roles, and the audiences readily identified with their early bravado right through to their near-tragic estrangement.

UN MISSIONS
Six decades later and soldiers were still leaving Kickham Barracks, this time in the Irish uniform and joining UN missions in Lebanon and war-torn African countries.

Among the new recruits was Declan Sweeney (Dylan Kennedy), just out of St Joseph’s School in Ferryhouse, and lacking in self-confidence. But Sweeney was accepted and rose through to the ranks with his strict adherence to duty – a trait encouraged in the army but caused the blinkered Sweeney many family problems.
Sweeney married Teresa Dalton (Ciara Laste), the daughter of a senior officer, after first wooing her by singing the Joe Dolan song ‘Teresa’, and they had a daughter Ella (played by Aoibhinn Kely and Julia Somers), who would go on to play a leading role in the third and last saga of the Kickham Barracks story.
The adult Ella (Liz Fitzgibbon) led the wives and partners who fought to so bravely to keep Kickham Barracks open after more than two hundred and fifty years service in Clonmel, stretching back to the time it was called Victoria Barracks.

Also central to the latter years storyline was a serving officer at Kickham Barracks, Cat Treacy (Julie Maguire), who was torn about moving to a barracks in her native Cork, especially as a result of a developing love interest with Ella, delicately treated in the storyline.

Filling various roles throughout the production was Eanna Grogan as the Multi-roller, from the doctor examining the WW1 recruits, to Major Dalton in the 1960s.
From Out the Land was a two-act production, with a significant change in tone from the first to the second. As we were introduced to the main characters in the first act, there was a sense of occasion, of adventure, of carefree abandon.
There was the excitement of soldiers marching off to war to the acclaim of locals; the thrill of Ireland claiming its place as a leading peace-keeping nation; and the confidence of local wives and partners that they would succeed in keeping the barracks open.

SOMBRE AFFAIR
The second act was a more sombre affair. World War One turned out to be so different to what many recruits had expected; peace-keeping missions were equally fraught with danger, while family differences surfaced at home, coupled with sad deaths; while the women fighting to keep the barracks open discovered they were fighting a losing battle.
A star-studded backstage crew complemented the front-line actors. The unique setting, with the fabulous Comeragh Mountains as a further backdrop, offered huge scope for such an imaginative production, and it was all put to best effect. The combination of props, lighting, sound and music helped make this a production that will live long in the memory of the more than two thousand who witnessed it.

Entitled to take a bow are – The Creative Team of Writer and Director, Jack Reardon; Co-Writer, Aine Ryan; Set and Costume Design, Jack Scullion; Composer and Musical Director, Kate Twohig; Lighting Design, Eoin Lennon; Sound Design, Michael Stapleton; Movement Director, Shane Dempsey; and Dramaturg, Pamela McQueen;
And the Production Team of Producer, Cliona Maher; Consultant Producer, Alison McKenna; Line Producer, Meg Ahearne; Production Manager, Joe McNicholas; Assistant Production Manager, Dirk Baumann; Stage Manager, Sinead Cormack; Ensemble Stage Manager, Grace Donnery; Marketing Manager, Elizabeth Bartley; and Costume Supervisor, Sue Crawford.
Music and song were such an integral part of the production, and the orchestra, elevated to the side of the stage, added so much to the production, and its members were Eimear Heeney, Victoria Birlea, Gerri Dunne, Brian Dillon and Clonmel’s Eoin Hally and Alex Ridley.

CITIZEN ENSEMBLE
The 80-plus strong Citizen Ensemble are central to the story. They are the people of Clonmel, of all ages, who weave together the various storylines, who give voice to this very intimate story of Clonmel. Their voices floated out over the expanse of the barracks, with haunting versions of It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Amhran na BhFiann and Silent Night among the highlights.
The entire production was befitting a town with such a rich and varied musical, theatrical and cultural background. As writer and director Jack Reardon said – this is a story about Clonmel, with Clonmel and for Clonmel. It succeeded on all fronts.