Ann Mc Hugh to direct ‘Faint Voices’

We are delighted to confirm that award-winning director Ann Mc Hugh has announced plans to stage ‘Faint Voices’, a one-act play, by John MacKenna in March 2020 (pending the successful acquisition of performing rights).

There will be an open reading on Monday the 16th of December at 8pm in the Abbey Arts Centre. All welcome.

The play is based on the love affair between Frank Ledwidge, the Slane poet who was killed in 1917 in the Great War, and Ellie Vaughey, a member of a well-to-do farming family from just outside Slane.
Ledwidge worked at a variety of jobs in and around Slane in the early years of the twentieth century. His poetic talent was encouraged by Lord Dunsany, a local landlord and himself a writer. Ledwidge’s promise was cut short by his early death.
The reasons for Ledwidge’s joining the British army are complicated. Some people have argued that it was a political decision. Undoubtedly, the loss of Ellie Vaughey’s love was a major influence and this factor is the central point of this play.
Ellie Vaughey married a local man and moved to Manchester where she died in childbirth, in June 1915.