Kevin Barry
Island Time 2020
Written and performed at Inis Oírr Lighthouse by Kevin Barry.
Sound design and Foley by Jean McGrath and film by Louise Manifold. Kindly support by the Commissioners of Irish Lights.
Kevin Barry is the author of the novels Night Boat to Tangier, Beatlebone and City of Bohane, and the story collections Dark Lies the Island and There Are Little Kingdoms. His awards include the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize and the Lannan Foundation Literary Award. His stories and essays appear in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter, and he lives in County Sligo.
Island Time
‘Early in the spring morning ... I’ll find myself, sometimes ... kind of becoming an absence to myself ... in a nice way ... and travelling ... travelling far across the fields of the sea.’
Long, long ago, a melancholy lighthouse keeper on Inis Oírr dreams of a different life and of distant lands ... and of a woman in Ennistymon.
Island Time is a multi-media monologue created for the Aerial Sparks interdisciplinary art project and Galway 2020.
With elements both of radio play and of digital theatre, Island Time sounds a tragi-comic tone and is primarily inspired by its unique location, the Inis Oírr lighthouse.