LILFORD MILL

By Neil Duffield

Commissioned and first produced by Pit Prop Theatre, Wigan

CAST 5

What the press said about it:

‘The hurried transportation of 2000 POWs in 1915 from a camp in Ireland to a weaving shed-cum-barracks in Lancashire is the backdrop for LILFORD MILL. The official explanation for what must have been a considerable expenditure of resources at the height of the war, was that Tipperaray’s Templemore barracks had substandard lavatories! Somehow this sudden and urgent concern for the sanitary conditions of enemy soldiers didn’t ring true. Interviews conducted by writer Neil Duffield with surviving eye-witnesses in Ireland and Lancashire revealed a more convincing reason: fears that the Germans would be liberated to fight alongside Irish Republicans in an insurrection against British rule – an astute prediction considering the subsequent 1916 easter Rising in Dublin. As an added twist the Germans were escorted to England by Irishmen (many of them republican sympathisers) in British Army uniform. In an unfolding web of political, personal and international relationships, the play avoids fixed strereotypes, introducing characters whose views and experiences are developed and changing. The questions raised delve into the real political complexities; the differing natures of nationalism in oppressed and oppressor nations; the role of women in war; and the varying responses of republicans and socialists to the international conflicts, proving that historical ‘accuracy’ is not a question of pristine costume drama but of political perspectives. The production shifts us back and forth, both spatially and temporally. All this is achieved with a cast of only 5. Prussophobic anxieties may have waned, but Irish republicanism remains the hottest topic for the British political agenda. LILFORD MILL tackles the prejudices head on and is certain to hit a few raw nerves – it’s high time too.
CITY LIFE

‘…..this little Lancashire town becomes a nexus of international – European socialism, pacifism, patriotism, Irish freedom, and the slaughter of the Great War – and Neil Duffield has managed to knit all these passionate strands into an extraordinarily moving and effective play, so dramatic that at times it is almost assaulting.’
THE GUARDIAN

‘Using as a backdrop the transfer of 2000 German prisoners from detention in a barracks in Templemore, County Tipperary, to a disused mill in Lancashire early in World War 1, the play concerns itself with the complex triangle of political relations between Ireland, Britain and Germany at that time – and how those relationships affected the lives of ordinary people from all three countries. Duffield tackles the ambitious task with great imagination and insight, backed by excellent research on both sides of the Irish sea. The result is a fine play.’
THE IRISH POST

©2002 Neil Duffield, All Rights Reserved.