Belfast Girls (An Táin Arts Centre and Quintessence Theatre at Lyric Theatre) – fleeing famine, seeking freedom in the face of yet more subjugation

Ireland has a lot of shameful history and another part of it from mid-1800s has been captured in theatrical form by playwright Jaki McCarrick. Belfast Girls is the story of women who boarded the Earl Grey ship in Belfast Harbour to set sail for a new life and better opportunities in Sydney, Australia.

Judith (Donna Anita Nikolaisen), Hannah (Leah Rossiter), Sarah (Carla Foley) and Ellen (Fiona Keenan O’Brien) have barricaded themselves below deck at one end of the sleeping quarters and built a wall of cases to keep the unruly girls from elsewhere on the island out. While they all joined the ship in Belfast, only Ellen is local and the rest come from further afield. For Judith, this is the second voyage of relocation in her short time alive.

They’ve faked their way on board the vessel that was supposedly transporting 200 fair maidens from the Emerald Isle down under to start new lives in the male-dominated country that needed wives and workers. But most of those on board are fleeing a life of being bought and sold by rich pimps, and escaping from starvation brought on by the famine. And they may not be as free as they think. They’re soon joined by a pale and sickly Molly (Siobhan Kelly) who is also hiding her own secret past.

Can they throw off their histories to “become mistresses of their own destiny”? Or are they caught in other people’s plans, as free as wasps caught in a sticky jam jar?

(The British Secretary of State for the Colonies – Earl Grey – ran the Female Orphan Emigration Scheme which sent over 4,000 “morally pure” young women aged 14-18 to Australia on board 20 ships between 1848 and 1850.)

Dramatically there’s a lot to play with. The characters are cooped up below deck, fighting the waves and the weather, other occupants, a scary matron, and each other. Their resilience is tested beyond breaking point. They have time to explore Marx and Engels, forge alliances, develop mistrust, and let a spot of bloodletting spiral out of control.

Director Anna Simpson creates a real feeling of claustrophobia in the wood-panelled set. The cast skilfully veer from harmony to hysteria in seconds. In a well-choreographed scene, the women are convincingly tossed around their living quarters and left feeling queasy. The dialogue is suitable antiquated though the coarse language is very familiar: patterns of swearing seem to have outsurvived many other idioms.

The passage to Australia is long, and that’s also reflected in the play’s run time (well over two hours which caught out an audience member who answered a call from a taxi driver out on Ridgeway Street disturbing a later scene).

Elongated scene changes involve slow-motion dancing and songs that don’t always advance the plot or change the mood. On the whole I found them to be a distraction from the otherwise gripping acting. Despite the unrushed movement on stage, there are some jarring transitions in the soundscaping when tracks aren’t allowed to gently fade from one into the next. A moment of tenderness between Judith and Molly seems to exist in McCarrick’s script simply to advance the plot a few scenes later and deserves further examination.

Belfast Girls is a story of making choices for yourself while others choose on your behalf. Understanding how and why the famine occurred – and was allowed to have the devastating impact it had on the poorer classes – is a recurring theme. Dialogue about powerful landlords applies equally to today. The motivation of churchmen and those with control over women in 1850 is questioned. Modern-day audiences can apply those same questions to more recent times and ask whether much has changed. Much of the play’s exploration of class and womanhood is pertinent in the run up to the Irish constitutional referendums in March 2024.

Having finished its short run at the Lyric Theatre, An Táin Arts Centre and Quintessence Theatre are now touring Belfast Girls through Drogheda (Friday 9-Saturday 10 February) and Navan (Friday 16-Saturday 17). Not to be confused with the other Belfast Girls (which is back in The MAC in May).

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