A beautifully told story of voyages, family and the memories we make.Rating
Excellent!
In 563 AD, history records that Saint Columba (more commonly known in Ireland as Colmcille) crossed from Ireland to the island of Iona. He made the crossing with 12 companions to found a monastery. In 1963, a bit of pub talk and idle chatter led John Barry to assemble a team of 12 pilgrims to recreate this voyage in a currach, a small wooden boat from Irish tradition, to mark the 1400-year anniversary.
John Barry’s grandson, Tomás Barry, grew up hearing stories of this voyage and of the pirates they had to fight along the way and has turned this into Going to Iona.
The evening starts with a very serious monk approaching in the dark with an illuminated book. He starts to sing in Irish as snippets of voiceovers around voyages are played. It feels like a setup for a serious reflection on faith, history and pilgrimage… until Tomás strips off the monk’s robes (mining this well for comedy), to reveal bright blue shorts and a white T-shirt and just starts talking to the audience. It’s a great piece of scene-setting; it sets a warm tone and lets us know that Tomás is going to make sure we all have fun on our journey together this evening.
Tomás is hugely engaging, warm and funny in his delivery, bringing the audience along on his voyage. He builds humour into the training and preparation the crew have for the journey and very nicely weaves in a series of sea or sailing references throughout. Some of these are so subtle, just a normal turn of phrase worked in; a sign of the attention to detail he places into his script. It’s a really warm piece of storytelling, with Tomás talking to the whole audience, occasionally asking us questions. It quickly feels closer to conversational, less like a prepared monologue and more like a story being told down the pub. Uh oh…that is how this story started – wait, am I going to now have to re-create the voyage too?
We know the destination. We know the pilgrims’ and John Barry’s story will reach Iona, but like the best tales, we are not just here for the landfall. Tomás loops us back to his childhood, sitting and listening to John Barry telling the story of this voyage. As he was so young, some wild tales may have snuck in, with passing ships suddenly becoming pirate vessels! Tomás looks back fondly at those times with his grandfather and how much he enjoyed his storytelling. Years later, he can miss him and be proud of the voyage, even if he now realises it is unlikely his granddad was actually fighting Danish pirates in the sea between Ireland and Scotland in the 1960s.
There is a lovely poignancy to Tomás revisiting those stories and being able to laugh at these unlikely details while also recognising what they meant to him as a young child, and what they mean to him now as his grandfather is no longer here to tell them himself. It takes an already fascinating story and adds a delightfully personal element, strongly conveying the affection he has for his granddad and the stories he told. The journey to Iona may have belonged to John Barry, but the memories belong to Tomás.
Written by Tomás Barry
Directed by Graham Butler-Breen
Getting to Iona has completed its performances at Union Chapel.
