THE ATTEMPTS at and failure to win an All-Ireland title since 1951 is the great existential drama and angst of all Mayomen and in a pub in Ballinrobe, that agony is being played out again.
This is the setting for Mick Donnellan’s play Shortcut to Hallelujah, which will be staged by Truman Town Theatre on the main stage of the Town Hall Theatre next Wednesday at 8pm.
Shortcut to Hallelujah is set in Quinn’s Bar, Ballinrobe, during the run up to the 2006 All-Ireland Football final between Mayo and Kerry. The fans in the pub are convinced Sam McGuire is coming west at last. There is only one problem. Rumours begin to surface of a curse on the team.
The last time Mayo won they celebrated so loud that they upset a Traveller’s funeral and it was decreed the county would never win again until everyone on the team was dead. Fifty years later only one player from that team remains alive.
Meanwhile, young Chris McGuire is in a bitter dispute with local landgrabber Tom Tully. Meanwhile Eimear, Chris’s fiancé, cannot reconcile herself to a life in Ballinrobe.
Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777 and www.tht.ie
