Man of Inniskeen’s Green Journey, a new play chronicling the contemporary Irish experience in America, recently made its debut at Somerville’s Arts at the Armory Café to widespread acclaim. In fact, word of mouth has been so strong that tickets for upcoming shows at the Armory are now sold out. With that in mind its producers, Club Theatre Boston, have decided to take it to South Boston, Dorchester and Brighton over the coming weeks.
Green Journey, produced by Samantha Edelheit and written by Boston playwright Peter Holm, is performed primarily by Somerville’s Brendan Crawley (who himself hails from Inniskeen, Co. Monaghan) and local actress Lindsay Garvey. The one-act work depicts life at the “House of Ireland”, as Crawley (playing himself) drops off an undocumented friend at Logan airport, and finds another.
As the action unfolds, Brendan and his friends help Jenna (played by Garvey) to gain U.S. citizenship, while the cast performs Irish music and Crawley sings and recites poetry, mainly by his fellow Inniskeenian, Patrick Kavanagh. The play encourages huge audience participation, with area musicians hopping up onto stage throughout to lend a hand.
Speaking with The Irish Emigrant, the play’s creator Peter Holm sounds truly taken aback by the response it has received:
“The response has been crazy,” he says. “After we first ran the play we held receptions in places like the Burren and the Foundry on Elm in Somerville, and it’s really caught the imagination; everybody was raving about it. Then Paddy Grace at the Littlest Bar says ‘you’ve gotta take this thing to Southie’, and it’s just grown from there.”
Marvelling at Crawley’s performance in the lead role, Holm says:
“Brendan was heavily involved in theatre at home in Ireland, but this is the first time in 30 years he has been on stage. He recites poetry, sings songs, he’s quite the performer. Another unique aspect is that we literally re-write the play every week – it’s almost ‘to the minute’. To hear Brendan up there coming out with lines about the latest news in Ireland, it’s really something.”
So with Boston singing its praises, where to next for Green Journey? Holm is thrilled to announce that the play will make its way to Ireland for the Patrick Kavanagh Weekend in Crawley’s home village of Inniskeen, in September, but before then, runs in New York and New Haven are both on the agenda.
“It’ll be great to get back to Ireland,” Holm says. “I trained at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin for six months in 1987, but all I got to see was the stage, the backstage, and the pub! This play is something the Irish can be really proud of, so we’re hoping to take it as far as we can.”

Vincent Coyle: Born and reared in Cavan... always interested in poetry...spent 38 years with Aer Lingus and retired in 2002 and up to and including today have had a happy life if an inconsequential one.

Evelyn Conlon: Evelyn Conlon was born in Rockcorry, Co. Monaghan and educated at Coravaccan NS and St. Louis Convent, Monaghan before leaving in 1970. She travelled widely in the 1970s in Australia and Asia. She has published three collections of short stories and three novels, the last of which, Skin of Dreams, was shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year. She is a member of Aosdána and  has been writer-in-residence in many countries and at University College Dublin. Last year she gave a series of lectures in Australian Universities, delivered the Famine Memorial Lecture in Sydney and gave a reading and a lecture at Notre Dame Universtiy, Indiana. A clear-sighted, observant and unsentimental thinker, her work is suffused with originality and surprising wit. Her work has been widely anthologized and translated. She is now resident in Dublin.
Conlon is a meticulous researcher and in her last visit to Australian Universities gave a talk titled ‘Corridors of Truth, what Fiction adds to History’.  Her last novel dealt with the profundity surrounding Capital Punishment, and brought her on to Death Row in the United States.  Her earlier novels Stars in the Daytime and A Glassful of Letters  deal variously with social and political dilemmas, as well as the loves and hates of her characters.  Through the eyes of her protagonists the reader leaves with profound insights into the lives played out through the work.
She has published three collections of short stories, My Head is Opening, Taking Scarlet as a Real Colour, the title story of which was performed at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, and Telling - New and Selected short stories. She has also complied and edited 4 books, including Later On, The Monaghan Bombing Anthology, which was used for a series of lectures in University of Forli, Italy, on The Language of War. It has been said of her that she has 'an adventurous ability to vary the pace of her narrative. Her prose invokes what she requires. She is one of Ireland's truly creative writers."
Pete Holm's plays have been performed and read on stages across the U.S. and abroad. Holm has been a working playwright since 1992 when he debuted at The University of New Mexico's Experimental Theatre Showcase. "The Gap" and "Three Stops" premiered in Boston and NewYork, and "Hootchgods" was co-produced by the musical group, Aerosmith at their Lansdowne Playhouse in 1995. His work was acclaimed as "Club Theatre" by the press, in reference to how the plays attract producers and audiences that are contemporary and attuned to his themes of alienation and escape through other characters, spirituality, and substances. The spectrum of Holm's work reflects upon his prior experience as an alternative singer songwriter, script writer, and promoter; ranging from the large cast epic to small ensemble works that can be adapted to be performed on any size stage for any size audience, Holm's trademark. Holm established a production company presenting new plays in clubs, cafes, and their home Black Box studio. In 2007, Holm co-founded The Penbrook Players with Charles Draghi, a theatre Company devoted to presenting new American plays that features strong voices of contemporary playwrights and authors, as well as establishing a Contest and Foundation for new American works on www.clubtheatreboston.com. His work also played at Colleges and Universities across the United States.

Drumlin Players: Drumlin Players, based in Monaghan, are in existence for over 30 years and have presented plays by Friel, Beckett, McCabe, Murphy, Farrell, Leonard, Nolan -
indeed, most of the leading contemporary Irish playwrights.  Drumlin Players were established in 1978, and won the All-Ireland One-Act Festival with Synge's "Riders to the Sea" that year. Since then, the group has participated in Drama Festivals, North and South, winning many regional awards and representing the North East region in the All-Ireland Finals in Athlone on many occasions, again winning many acting, directing and technical awards there. In Ireland, Drumlin Players have mainly concentrated on performing in
local professional venues, like the Garage Theatre Monaghan and the Ramor Theatre in Virginia. Since 1996, the group has travelled extensively abroad; Canada, USA, South Korea and Japan

Paul Durcan: Poet Paul Durcan was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 16 October 1944. He was educated at University College, Cork, where he studied archaeology and medieval history. In 1974 he won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, and published his first collection O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor in 1975. Subsequent collections include The Selected Paul Durcan (1982), Jesus and Angela (1988) and Cries of an Irish Caveman: New Poems (2001), a central theme of which is death and disintegration. His 1985 collection, The Berlin Wall Café, a series of poems about the break-up of his marriage, was a Poetry Book Society choice and is regarded by many critics as his most important work.
He was Poet in Residence at the Frost Place, New Hampshire, in 1985, and Writer in Residence at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1990. He was awarded the Irish American Cultural Institute Poetry Award in 1989 and his collection Daddy, Daddy (1990) won the Whitbread Poetry Award. He was joint winner of the 1995 Heinemann Award. His most recent collections of poetry are The Art of Life (2004), and The Laughter of Mothers (2008).
Paul Durcan lives in Dublin.

Dr. Reamonn O’Donnchadha: Dr. Reamonn O Donnchadha works as a university teacher, a psychotherapist and is the author of The Confident Child, and Be Confident.
His most recent book is an exploration of the symbolic meaning and imagery contained in the poetry of the poet, and how this can bring a deeper meaning to the psychological life of the individual who readshis poetry.
He lives in Connemara, where he is close to the Irish language, music and the fertile barrenness of the bogs, mountains and hills.

Margaret Martin: Margaret has acted in and directed plays and musicals around the West of Ireland.  She has played leading roles with Patrician  Musical Society, Galway and An Taibhdearc.  Until recently she had her own School of Speech and Drama and she graduated with an M.A.  in Modern Theatre Studies 1998 and also lectures in GMIT, Galway.
Margaret lived at Main Street, Carrickmacross for 20 years.

Brian Lynch: Was born in 1945 in Dublin, where he still lives. His first book of poems Endsville (with Paul Durcan) was published in 1967. New and Renewed – Poems 1967-2004 was published by New Island last year.
Amongst his eleven books of verse is a translation, Paul Celan: 65 Poems (Raven Arts Press 1986). Samuel Beckett nominated him for election to Aosdána in 1985, praising his “exceptional talent”. He is also a dramatist for stage, screen and television.
Crooked in the Car Seat was nominated for Best Play in the 1979 Dublin Theatre Festival. A four-part RTE and Channel 4 TV series about German spies in Ireland, Caught in a Free State, won a Jacobs Award and the Banff International TV Festival Best Drama Award in 1984.
Love and Rage, a feature film starring Greta Scacchi and Daniel Craig, was directed by Cathal Black in 1998.
His book on the artist Tony O’Malley (New Island) is now in its third edition.
His first novel, The Winner of Sorrow, based on the life of the poet William Cowper (1731-1800), is published by New Island Press

Kieran Markey: Born the only child of parents who farmed an uneconomical land commission holding in the Parish of Donaghmoyne, Co. Monaghan.
Emigrated to England at the age of 18 years. Trained as a Psychiatric and General Nurse.
Worked in the Clinical, Planning, and Management of the service. Retired as Director of Mental Health Services. Currently works part-time as advisor in the Private Health Care Service and farming at Holyhead, Anglesey.