Tommy's play reflects on Michael Davitt's outstanding legacy

One of Ireland's greatest patriots, Mayo-born Michael Davitt, will be remembered this St Patrick's Weekend when three very special shows are held at Ballina Arts Centre. 

'Let Justice Rise Though The Heavens Fall' is a play by well-known Ballina man Tommy Cooke. It will be staged in the local arts centre on Thursday, Friday and Saturday next, March 14 to 16, commencing at 8pm nightly.

Though the seeds of a Land League movement had been sown in Mayo by James Daly, the editor of the Connaught Telegraph, and in Galway by Matthew Harris, it was the invitation by James Daly to Michael Davitt that was crucial to the development, in the first instance, of the Land League of Mayo. Michael Davitt’s invitation to Charles Stewart Parnell and putting him at the head of the movement was a master stroke in expanding this movement to the National Land League, which at its height had 200,000 members and 1,800 branches in Ireland alone by the early 1880s. The Land League would spread throughout the world to wherever Irish men and women had emigrated to in whatever circumstances. What the Land League and the Ladies' Land League achieved in just three years after 800 years of British rule and oppression is staggering. By 1914, 316,000 Irish tenant farmers and their families would now be land owners and would constitute over half the population of this country. That this was pivotal to the foundation of the Republic of Ireland is clear.

"Our play is an effort to bring alive those dark days and shine a light on those great people, particularly Michael Davitt, who were instrumental in giving the ordinary people of this country hope for themselves and their families and a renewed pride in that joy of being Irish," says Tommy. "It is not a sad story but one that sparkles with unbounding inspiration. The Land League and the Ladies Land League laid the groundwork that would transport our country from the Fourth World to the First World. Michael Davitt, a cornerstone of the Land League movement, was born in Mayo and gives us good reason to be proud of our county. But his life outside the Land League movement is also exceptional in its width and depth."

Come and see the full story of Michael Davitt in Ballina Arts Centre from March 14 to 16 and renew your knowledge of the times and legacy of the Land League movement and of your pride in the monumental historical figure that was - and is - Michael Davitt.

Tickets are available from www.ballinaartscentre.com or call the centre at 096-73593.