A PLAY mentioned in the Ryan report and written by a district court judge will be staged at Green Street courthouse in Dublin today.
The Evidence I Shall Give, which was previously performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1961, is about a 13-year-old girl who was transferred from an orphanage to an industrial school.
Written by Judge Richard Johnson, then a judge of the District Court in Co Kerry, it is a courtroom drama where the main protagonists are a humane solicitor, who argues that young children need “kissing and caressing”, and a mother superior who says they need harsh discipline in order to learn “humility”.
The play ends with the girl taking off her scarf to show her shaved head, a punishment for absconding
The Evidence I Shall Giveis referred to in volume 4 of the Ryan report, which looked at the political, social and economic context of the industrial school system.
Judge Johnson’s son, also called Richard was, until his recent retirement, president of the High Court. He remembered his father’s preoccupation with the abuse issue.
“He felt there were things going on he was not happy with,” Mr Justice Johnson told The Irish Times following publication of the Ryan report last year when asked about his father’s play.
He said the incident at the centre of his father’s play was true, where a girl who ended up appearing before his father was sent to school with one shoe and her head half-shaved.
The Evidence I Shall Give, which was the only play Judge Johnson wrote, was given a reading at the Peacock Theatre in Dublin last April as part of its Darkest Corner series of productions marking the Ryan report.
It will be performed at Green Street courthouse by Tralee’s Zyber Theatre Company tonight and tomorrow at 8pm, with a matinee at 3pm tomorrow also.
It is directed by Pádraig Dennehy.