A Welcome Change: Working in the Arts in Rural Ireland

Late 1999, London – I sat in a small office. There were books stacked to the ceiling, and paper drifted from haphazard mounds on the cramped desk onto an industrial carpet. It was not beautiful, it was barely functional. The man that sat in front of me looked tired and bored. I got the feeling that I was wasting his time, but I didn’t understand why. I was being interviewed by him as part of an audition process to gain a place at the London drama school he worked for. He looked at my application and wearily asked me how often I went to the theatre to see shows. I confidently told him that we went once a year to see a show in Edinburgh. He sighed and spat out ‘if you don’t watch theatre, where is the evidence that you actually want this?’ he didn’t wait for my answer. He proceeded to tell me that I should go away and think about why I wanted to be an actress, and if I was serious I would go and watch some shows, but he didn’t believe that I was committed.

At 16 I didn’t have the confidence to challenge someone I perceived to be an authority figure. I didn’t have the language or socio-economic understanding to explain the arts deprivation in the area I lived. I was unable to articulate why becoming an actress was important to me when watching theatre wasn’t part of my life.

His words stung, but they didn’t stop me.

It took four years to get into a drama school that I wanted to attend. I spent those four years growing, pushing myself and watching shows. I knew what I wanted.

In December 2008 I become a parent. I had graduated from acting school the year before… my career had barely begun. As any new parent understands, your world is turned upside down, child-less friends can start to drift away and your sense of self can disappear. I didn’t know anyone with children. We made the decision to move out of the city and return to rural Ireland. The promise of space and safety awaited our newly formed family. We wanted our children to have the same experience of freedom that we had as children. We were not thinking about the lack of theatrical opportunities in an isolated area.

Very quickly my husband was regularly travelling 5 hours a day to work as a technician in Dublin theatres. Rents in the city were high, and work as a freelance actor and director brought unpredictable earnings. Add in the cost of childcare for long and non-social hours, and you have a debt bill as nasty as the nappies you are changing.

With my work not established enough to bring in a regular wage, we made the choice to stay in rural Ireland where we could confidently cover our expenses.

At this point, the arts industry parents I knew were people whose partners had full time jobs in non-art careers. Mothers I met who worked in the arts were older, they had established their careers before having a child, or they had waited until their child was grown before they started their career.

I couldn’t find anyone at my career and parenthood stage. I missed out on a lot of opportunities during this time; I couldn’t get to Dublin, complete a days work and get home within the childcare hours, it wasn’t appropriate to bring my son to an evening show (never mind to a bar after) so seeing work and networking went out the window, and some jobs were paying in ‘exposure’, so I couldn’t justify the expense.

But I continued to work. I had a very supportive local arts office that funded some of my work, I discovered a beautiful circus company that sparked my love affair with circus and welcomed my children in the rehearsal room, and I developed a small but meaningful circle of arts worker friends.

When we moved to Asia in 2015, for the first time I felt like I was figuring out what it was to be a grown up. I was paid a good regular wage, we could afford full-time childcare, and we were living together in close proximity to the work we were doing. I felt that I could be a working mother in the career I had trained for and not have to sacrifice other parts of my life for this privilege.

Back in Ireland. Back feeling that I am standing at the start line of my career again. Back writing at our kitchen table. I look out of my window and I see countryside. Again, we made the decision to live in a rural location.

We removed ourselves from being in easy reach of Dublin (it was only supposed to be six weeks, and we wanted to be somewhere beautiful). We are having conversations about location, about schools, about our careers. But this time, there has been a shift. It is not just us living with restrictions. Things feel different. I have taken part in trainings and webinars, I have attended shows, I have presented work to an audience, all from this kitchen table. I have connected with so many people in the industry without once walking into a bar. I feel a small part included the Dublin-centric arts industry. I welcome how this period has opened the way we work and think. I don’t feel pressured to move to the city. I don’t feel pressured to take work outside the arts in order to pay city living bills. I don’t feel pressured to sacrifice my children’s rural childhood experience.

I hope that we can retain a level of this accessibility when we return to gathering in person. Why should the voices that we hear be reduced to those living in one location, or those established enough to choose where they live. As other industries embrace working from home as a viable option, we should explore and expand this new area in our industry. As a teenager living miles from the nearest streetlight, online shows would have revolutionized my youth, as an early-career young parent, the remote accessibility being utilised today would have allowed growth in my career that I can only dream about. It will never replace watching a live performance, or having an impromptu chat with someone at the bar, but now that we have cracked open this virtual door, let’s not slam it shut with the first vaccine, it holds possibility, opportunity and hope.

It may be 21 years late, but here is my response to that man who interviewed me:

I grew up with imagination. I was allowed to be bored. I was allowed the freedom to roam and explore. I was given the space to become my own person. I was given independence to make my own decisions and find my own path. I fell in love with storytelling when I read the mountains of books my parents provided. Images filled my head when I stayed up late at night reading under the covers. I attended music festivals before they were cool, and saw performance art long before I knew it had a name. I was taken to museums and historical sights regularly. I was invited to walk for miles in the mountains, learning the power of the mind over the physical body. Every night the news was on during dinner, and the newspaper was open on the kitchen table every Sunday. My parents drove for miles to allow me to study drama when my school did not have it as a subject. They dropped me at a dormitory in Glasgow city centre when I was 15 years old to attend a 5 week summer theatre course. They bought me a plane ticket when I was 16 so I could travel to New York for an audition. Theatre hasn’t been easily accessible, but my cultural exposure has been rich. I want to work in theatre because I want to tell stories. I will discover theatre in time, and I will learn from it. I will learn how vast and deep it is as an art form. I will study its history and context. I will grow because of it. I will fight against limiting in my vision of what it can be.

The evidence of my commitment will be the lifelong career I build for myself.

Published in Collaboration with this creative nomad

this creative nomad podcast

Also by this creative nomad:

Every “No” is One Step Closer to a “Yes”

The Communal Table: An Untethered Office