This month, actor and mother and baby home survivor Noelle Brown and singer Camille O’Sullivan will take to the stage together for a new theatre performance called In Plain Sight.
They may appear an unlikely duo, but the two Cork women go way back, having attended the same school in Blackrock, even performing together in the school’s musical production of Destry Rides Again, in which Brown sang and O’Sullivan didn’t. “Which was a big mistake,” laughs Brown.
This new project, written by Brown, focuses on Ireland’s history of mother and baby homes, paying particular attention to the large stately buildings dotted around the country that incarcerated these young pregnant women.
During the performance the pair discuss the design and history of three homes that are still standing, Sean Ross Abbey, Castlepollard and Bessborough Mother and Baby Home (where Brown was born) while weaving through original songs performed by O’Sullivan.
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Speaking of the harm inflicted by these institutions and how it still resonates today, Brown explains, “there isn’t a family in Ireland that isn’t affected by it… it’s such a huge issue right across the country”.
The show, which is “primarily about honouring women”, will begin a five day run from July 8th at the Sacred Heart of Mary Convent in Roscrea, Tipperary. It’s a venue, with an old church that Brown loved from the moment she walked inside. “We went on a road trip and looked at various buildings and we walked into that and went, ‘Oh my god, this is incredible’,” she says.
You can listen back to this conversation in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
