How do you survive in a land that no longer has a place for you?
In the Irish war of independence in the 1920s, hundreds of stately homes were burnt to the ground and the owners’ ancestral lands seized. Many of these dispossessed aristocratic Anglo-Irish families left their home country for a brand new beginning elsewhere, drawing a thick veil over the past. Others stayed on in Ireland, doing their best to assimilate into a society that no longer had a place for them. International playwright Ann Henning Jocelyn follows the story of three generations of such a family up until the present day, examining their struggle for identity against an ever evolving cultural, political and social landscape.
Implicit in between the lines is also the story of Ireland.
Reflecting an imposed social system that turned everyone into a victim, Only Our Own follows one nation’s journey from a highly polarised society to a modern integrated one, ready at last to rise above age-old bitter divisions.
On a personal level, the play explores the dilemma of living with or without a traumatic past; the inter-generational gap between people emotionally linked but faced with different life options; and, ultimately, the need to develop and adjust to a world rapidly changing around you.
