An Irish Goodbye

As Silent Trade opens at the Lyric, actor Seamus O'Hara tells Gail Bell of the importance of lifting the lid on modern slavery in Northern Ireland before he ...

“It means, as an actor, your sense of ownership over the material is profound – and that’s when magic happens. It felt like good timing because the received wisdom at the time was that you had to go to London and train and then just exist until someone noticed you.” It’s like a superpower and the greatest gift I’ve been given to deal with my feelings. “James [Martin], who plays my brother, Lorcan, who has Down’s syndrome, is really phenomenal in it. “It’s not about shoving a message down your throat, but more about provoking action,” he stresses. In this case, it is playwright Rosemary Jenkinson who exposes the human misery lurking in leafy Belfast suburbs.