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A Skull in Connemara
Written by	Martin McDonagh
Characters	Mick Dowd MaryJohnny Rafferty Mairtin Hanlon Thomas Hanlon
Date premiered	June 3, 1997
Original language	English

A Skull in Connemara is a play by British playwright Martin McDonagh.

The play was first performed at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway, Ireland in 1997 and then was performed at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs in London, England one month later, on July 17, 1997, starring Mick Lally as Mick Dowd, Anna Manahan as Mary Rafferty, David Wilmot as Mairtin Hanlon, and Brían F. O'Byrne as Tom Hanlon. The play was nominated in 1997 for Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. The play is part of McDonagh's Leenane Trilogy, set in Connemara, a small town in Leenane, an area in County Galway on the west coast of Ireland, and consists of The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996), A Skull in Connemara (1997) and The Lonesome West (1997).

Plot Summary

Scene 1

The play opens in Mick Dowd's home with a dialogue between Mick and MaryJohnny, in which they drink Mick's poteen together, make gratuitous amounts of small talk and recall past happenings in Connemara, Leenane. MaryJohnny then brings up Mick's "filthy occupation" which he attempts to not talk about. This particular job involves disinterring the bones in specific areas of the local cemetery so that room can be made for the newly deceased, and is offered to Mick by Father Welsh Walsh Welsh's church in Leenane once per year. Shortly after this conversation stagnates, Mairtin, the grandson of MaryJohnny, arrives at Mick's home much to Mick and MaryJohnny's dismay. He explains that he has been employed by Father Walsh Welsh Walsh to assist Mick in his upcoming task in the cemetery. Mick is displeased at this. It is clear from their dialogue that Mick and Mairtin have a severely caustic and vulgar relationship with one another. MaryJohnny attempts to pry out of Mick just what he does with the remains he digs up in the cemetery, but Mick refuses to tell her. Mairtin mentions the seven year old accusation that Mick killed his wife, Oona, whose body currently resides in the plot of land that Mick will be digging up, but Mick and MaryJohnny scold him and explain that she died in a drunk-driving accident.

Scene 2

Mairtin and Mick wittily argue as they re-dig graves by the light of the moon and a few lamps. Mairtin complains and Mick berates him for it. This goes on for a time. Mairtin wonders aloud where human genitalia goes after death upon noticing that none of the skeletal remains include genitals and Mick makes fun of him for it. Thomas Hanlon, a police officer and the brother of Mairtin, shows up to preside over Mick's digging up his wife, so as "to save tongues wagging" around Leenane. Thomas and Mick begin to argue for no good reason and eventually stop arguing for no good reason. The scene concludes with Mick beginning to exhume his wife's grave when he finds — to his complete and utter shock — that her coffin is empty.

Scene 3

Back in Mick's home, with three skulls and their accompanying bones laid out on the kitchen table, Mairtin and Mick are drunk on poteen. Mairtin begins admitting to having done bad things in the past, due to his drunkenness. They begin crushing the bones and skulls with mallets. In his drunken rant, Mairtin speaks about how awful it is that Mick's wife's remains were stolen, along with the locket she would have been wearing, and gives the details about that locket when prompted for them by Mick. Mick takes this information to mean that Mairtin must have been the one to steal the body out of its grave. He asks Mairtin if he'd like to take a drive, and Mairtin says he would. Mick asks if Mairtin is too drunk to drive, and Mairtin says that he is not, while in truth, he very much is too drunk to be driving. They exit the house to go to Mick's car, while Mick menacingly carries his mallet along with them out the door.

Scene 4

Mick enters his house alone, his shirt covered in blood. MaryJohnny knocks at the door and Mick lets her inside. Seeing the red all over his clothing, she asks him if he's been painting something, and he says that he has. They talk about the disappearance of his wife's remains and he shares some memories of her with MaryJohnny. Thomas enters Mick's home and says he has come so that Mick may confess on paper to the murder of his wife seven years ago. Mick complies. Mary is shocked. When Mary questions Mick as to why he did it, he reassures that he did not do it, but if the whole town seems to believe he has, then he is finally ready to give them all what they want, regardless of the truth. He also says that he had never killed anyone until tonight. When Thomas says that Mick couldn't have killed Mairtin that night because he is out with friends, Mick jeers at what a terrible policeman Thomas must be not to notice his own brother's brains smeared all over Mick's shirt. Thomas begins to brutally beat Mick. As this is happening, a concussed and very badly injured Mairtin enters the house and asks what all the fuss is about. Mairtin then goes on to explain that Mick did not do anything wrong and that he got his injuries from a drunk driving accident of his own doing. In the midst of this confusion, Mick, realizing he hadn't committed a murder that evening, burns the confession he previously had written. Thomas, seeing that no murder had been committed and that Mick's signed confession was gone, leaves humiliated. Mairtin follows suit. MaryJohnny begins insinuating that she knows for sure that Mick killed his wife, and Mick swears that he did not.

Publication Information

Paperback: 72 pages
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc. (October 1, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0822216655
ISBN-13: 978-0822216650

Notable Productions

National Debuts

• Town Hall Theatre, Galway, Ireland — 1997
• Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, London, England — 1997
• The American Contemporary Theater, Seattle, Washington, United States — 2000

Notable Reviews

• "...established Mr. McDonagh as one of the theater's most daring and imaginative young writers and put the west Irish town of Leenane on the world's literary map." Wilborn Hampton, The New York Times
• "...an entertaining, provocative piece of skulduggery from a writer who is helping to re-energize the English-speaking stage." Misha Berson, Seattle Times
• "Seventeen years on, and a Skull In Connemara, the second of the Leenane Trilogy, does little apart from show us an Irish countryside populated with stupid, squalid, ignorant, violent headcases... It all feels rather juvenile..." John McKeown, Irish Independent
• "It’s a comedy, you say, but “Skull” can be too clever by half, and [Director,] Stuart Rogers leans on the laughs at the expense of tonal variation." Charlotte Stoudt, Los Angeles Times

References

• Jordan, Eamonn. "Heterotrophic and Funerary Spaces: Martin McDonagh's A Skull in Connemara." Focus 2012 (January 2012): 63-76. Faculty of Humanities, University of Pécs, Jan. 2012. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

• Russell, Richard Rankin. Martin McDonagh, A Casebook. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Print.

External links

• http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=2786

Category:British plays Category:Irish plays Category:Plays by Martin McDonagh