One night only...and it's tonight in Brighton

Tonight  (Sunday March 21st) Grace of The Gamblers will be launched in Brighton with a staged reading by Sister Ignatius Loyala, Sister Sinead, and Sister Philomena  - aka Naomi Foyle, Bernadette Cremin and Bridget Whelan . Yes, that's me as Sr Phil. For one night only I'm adopting a kind of hearty nun persona -- an out of step, out of tune, narrator of one of the most exciting periods of Irish history. 
Grace of the Gamblers is a ballad pamphlet performance poet Naomi has developed as part of her PhD thesis. It tells the story of Grace O'Malley, a pirate queen who lived off the Mayo coast at the time of Queen Elizabeth the First. The two queens met and are supposed to have liked each other. Or at least Elizabeth saw the promotional opportunities of being associated with a woman who was a legend in her own life time. 

Here is a taster....

      O come to the convent, young ladies of Mayo,

     We'll arm you with needles and thread.

     Outside in the trenches, a summer of spuds

     Is rotting away like the dead...

                                                 in their beds...

    Is rotting away like the dead