‘You can’t just forget trauma’ says Ruairi Conaghan as Troubles play gets London transfer

ACTOR Ruairi Conaghan has written, directed and stars in a one-man play which tackles the continuing impacts the Troubles have had on his life.

Following its premiere at the Lyric Theatre Belfast, Lies Where it Falls gets a London transfer this month.

The play tells Conaghan’s story and the personal trauma he has experienced as a result of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

A well-known face on both the screen and stage, Conaghan has a career that has spanned more than 30 years.

He has starred in the likes of Downtown Abbey and Waking the Dead and his recent theatre productions include Hamlet at the Barbican, in which he starred alongside Benedict Cumberbatch.

But the 57-year-old, who was born in Magherafelt in Derry and now lives in London, has a personal history which is blighted by the Troubles.

In 1974, eight-year-old Conaghan lost his uncle, Judge Rory Conaghan, who was murdered by an IRA gunman disguised as a postman.

He was shot dead on his doorstep whilst holding his nine-year-old daughter’s hand.

Ten years later, in 1984, IRA man Patrick Magee attempted to assassinate Margaret Thatcher by planting a bomb in the Brighton Grand Hotel which killed five people.

In 2015, Conaghan played the role of Magee in the controversial play, The Bombing of The Grand Hotel.

Preparing for the role required him to meet Magee - an experience which would come back to haunt him.

But it wasn’t until he was performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet alongside Cumberbatch that his repressed trauma would return.

Those feelings, compounded by playing Magee a few years previously, lead to a catastrophic physical and mental breakdown for the actor.

It was that which motivated him to write Lies Where It Falls, in which he recounts the experience of meeting and playing Magee.

“Boris Johnson's Northern Ireland Legacy Act passed in May of this year and was intended to prevent any further prosecutions of those responsible for crimes committed during the Troubles and to stop any formal investigations, the theory being that the story is finished - we should now just forget all about it,” Conaghan said.

“But you can’t just forget trauma, it grips hard,” he added.

“There's a generation of people still silently burning with anger and pain.

“If there will be no formal means to pursue truth and justice, then stories become everything.

“Those stories must be told. No one chooses this trauma.”

In Lies Where It Falls Conaghan demonstrates the “pervasiveness of trauma, the healing powers of theatre, and the legacy of The Troubles on the 40th anniversary of the Brighton Bombing”.

Lies Where it Falls runs at the Finborough Theatre, London, from November 26 to December 21. Tickets are available here.