Lies Where It Falls: A brave look at trauma, collective silence and the healing power of theatre

When actor Ruairi Conaghan played the role of Brighton Bomber Patrick Magee on stage, he didn’t realise it would compound repressed trauma from his uncle’s murder by the IRA fifty years ago in 1974. 

Now, Mr Conaghan is taking his own story to the stage in Lies Where It Falls – written and performed by Mr Conaghan and Directed by Patrick O’Kane – which will run at Finborough Theatre from November 26 until December 19.

Speaking to the South London Press, Mr Conaghan said: “It is a story of trauma and the healing powers of theatre, but it is also a story of hope.”

Lies Where It Falls relates to a single year, 2015, when Mr Conaghan played two productions back to back whilst living in Crystal Palace. 

The first was The Bombing of the Grand Hotel, where the Belfast born actor took on the role of Patrick Maggee – the Brighton bomber.

Maggee served 14 years of five life sentences under the terms of the Good Friday agreement. Since his release in 1999, the former IRA member has held hundreds of peace talks with Jo Berry, the daughter of Sir Anthony Berry who was killed in the bomb blast at The Grand Hotel.

In Lies Where It Falls, Mr Conaghan recounts the experience of meeting Magee ahead of the show.

He said: “We had a very polite meeting where we stayed within our own positions. He had no idea about my history.

“In Lies Where it Falls, that scene is one of missed opportunities. I wish I had asked him – do you still think violence is acceptable?”

Fifty years ago, in 1974, Mr Conaghan was just eight-years-old when his uncle, Judge Rory Conaghan, was murdered by an IRA gunman disguised as a postman.

He was shot dead on his doorstep whilst holding his nine-year-old daughter’s hand. 

The murder of Judge Conaghan and magistrate Martin McBurney on the same day were two of the earliest shootings of Catholic judges in an IRA campaign which continued for 20 years.

Mr Conaghan said: “I got taken out of school one day and told that he had been shot, not killed.

“I considered my uncle indestructible. I just didn’t think he could die. But then he did.”

In that moment, a new reaslisation of what violence represented dawned on Mr Conaghan.

He said: “My youngest cousin was holding his hand when he was murdered. A great silence existed. We came to London where no one knew my history. I never spoke about it.”

Meeting Magge didn’t initially trigger Mr Conaghan’s repressed trauma.

It was when he took on the role of Player King in the Barbican’s Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch, that Shakespeare’s evocative speeches brought everything to the surface.

He said: “There was one speech about a murder and all I saw was the murder of my uncle.

“My whole body collapsed, I developed chronic fatigue and chronic pain.”

Despite his breakdown, Mr Conaghan performed in all 100 shows, but working tirelessly only worsened his condition.

He said: “After that, my wife and my son took me to Donegal. I had therapy and was put on medication and I sat by the sea.”

Two years later, Mr Conaghan was ready to get back into work and conjured up the idea for Lies Where it Falls.

He said: “The experience made me think about how trauma works – there’s no time limit on it. It grips hard.

“The idea of making a play out of it was unique – an actor’s story about his own life.”

Lies Where it Falls is not about putting the world to rights.

Mr Conaghan said: “I can’t solve everyone’s problems. It’s about what happened to me. But by doing that I have connected with others. People have reached out to me to share their own stories.”

Mr Conaghan said this revealed the true depths of the “collective silence” that covers Ireland in the aftermath of such a brutal conflict.

He said: “I had school friends who told me that their parents or family members had been killed. I had never known. And they had never known about my uncle.”

Lies Where it Falls is about Mr Conaghan understanding his trauma, a process which would see him move back to Belfast and begin work with victim support groups.

He said: “As long as we exist we will never let them forget. Everyone involved in that disaster caused 4,000 families to lose loved ones.”

Despite the heavy topics the play grapples with, Lies Where it Falls is a celebration of theatre, entwined with snippets of humour and entertainment.

Mr Conaghan said: “We deal with all these issues very seriously but I’m an entertainer and I want to offer that sense of hope – the point of the play is that I got better and reached my own understanding of what happened.”

Pictured top: Ruairi Conaghan in Lies Where It Falls (Picture: Ruairi Conaghan)