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Interview I did with #FierceWomenCollective

Name: Martina Collender

Occupation: Playwright and Repeal the 8th Activist

Nationality: Irish

Country of residence: Ireland

Languages spoken: English

Contact: [email protected]

Tumblr blog: martinacollenderplaywright

Twitter: @Teenycollender

Availability: Martina is available to teach Creative Writing and Drama to all ages and also to give workshops on Play-writing. She is also available to gives talks on Repeal The 8th Campaign.

Advice to other women: "Everyone has a story in them. Write that play. Write the play you need to write. And don't ever, ever let anyone tell you you can't do it, because people will. They'll tell you, "You can't do that. You're not able to do that," and it's their own self-worries projected onto you. So don't ever let anyone tell you you can't do it."

Today I'm joined by an incredible woman who has a really long list of accomplishments up her sleeve. Involved in theatre and performing arts industries, Martina Collender is a playwright, writer and performer who is also actively involved in teaching of writing and drama to many young people. But in addition to her paid work, Martina is also a fierce campaigner for the Repeal the 8th movement in Ireland, which I will let her go into more detail about shortly. Welcome, Martina.

Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, it's wonderful to be able to speak with you today, and I really appreciate your time. Look, I thought we could start with talking about your theatre career. First question I had was, have you always wanted to be a playwright, and what is it about performance that captures your imagination?

Well, I joined Waterford Youth Arts, which is a youth theatre company based in Ireland. They do drama, arts, dance, creative writing and film. I joined when I was 16 and I left school quite young. I left school when I was 13 or 14, and I didn't really know what to do with my life. I quickly discovered I'm not an actor, I'm the worst actor in the world, so I was about to give it all up. I hated acting.

When I went to see a play by a local playwright called Jim Daly, To Leap From Paradise, and it might as well have been the West End, I fell in love with the lights, with the performance, with the idea you can tell a person's heart on stage through writing and performance. So I couldn't act, I couldn't do too much else, so I decided I was going to be a writer. So I got loads of plays out of the local library. I got Brian Friel, I got all the classic playwrights, and I read them all and I fell in love with it.

Ever since then, I haven't really been able to do anything else and I'm just enthralled by the idea that theatre can give a voice to the voiceless. And any good theatre, I think, if you pay your money for your ticket, you can sit down and you can see your own life on stage. That's the magic of theatre for me. I can't do anything else so I'm kind of stuck with writing.

Oh, it sounds absolutely beautiful. You left school so, so young and it's hard for an adult to imagine what they want to do, let alone a young person of that age. Was it easy to infiltrate the performing arts scene in your local area? Were you welcomed?

Well, I was really, really lucky. I was incredibly supported. I had Ollie Breslin at Waterford Youth Arts who welcomed me with open arms and gave me every opportunity I could possibly hope for. And then in Garter Lane Arts Centre, our local theatre, Jim Nolan opened doors to me, a professional director, and training me up as a stage manager. And then I went onto Ben Hennessy with Red Kettle Theatre Company, another professional theatre company, and they opened their doors for me and allowed me opportunities to learn. I think with theatre, you can't really learn from a book. I think you have to learn by doing it.

I then went onto Liam who gave me every opportunity, and Liam said a great thing once. He said, "The only thing you can ever give someone in this life is your time. Money and all of that other rubbish doesn't matter. The only thing you can give someone is time." And I was really lucky that I had all these professionals give me their time and patience and knowledge and look after me and take care of me when I messed up again and again and again. And what a wonderful thing to do. They weren't paid for that. They had no reason to do that. They just saw a young person who loved theatre and desperately wanted to learn, and they gave me everything they could. So I've been incredibly supportive. I've been very, very lucky.

Ah, that's absolutely wonderful. I must say, the idea about time being the most valuable thing you can give someone, I completely agree. It really is amazing what that can do for somebody's life. So it's wonderful to hear that other people around the world use that motto as well.

Yes. When Liam said it to me, and he said it to me two years ago and it was like a revelation, I was like, "Oh my God, you're right! That's all we can give each other. Yes!"

Martina's first play, written at just 17 years old.

What about the process of writing for you? How old were you when you produced your first play?

I was 17 when I had my first play put on, and that was a youth theatre play, so I work with youth arts regularly and I write for the old people. My first adult production put on in 2013 in the Theatre Royal with Red Kettle Theatre Company called Lover's Dust, which was directed by Ben Hennessey. That was a huge, huge opportunity for me and I learned a lot of lessons from it. The main thing Ben gave me was the confidence. He gave me the confidence that I was someone and that I could write.

In terms of the process of writing, it's really hard. It's really hard to write a play. It's really hard. But I picked up a lot of skills over the years on how to do it and how to sit down with it. I suppose, again, it comes back to support. The best thing you can do is get a group of actors in a room who read the play with you and say, "Oh, that doesn't work. Maybe try this," and you take a pen and you start cutting things.

Okay, so this is probably a really ignorant question, but I'm going to ask. What about the selection of people, the casting selection for the play? When you are writing something, do you have a strong idea in your mind of who you want to portray that or is that something that kind of happens organically?

I wouldn't. I suppose a lot of people are writer/director. I don't have the skills to be a director, so through the audition process I just don't know. When I write my character, I don't write them for specific actors. There's obviously actors I admire desperately and I dream of having them in my play, but I kind of leave that up to the director. I'd hand over and I'd trust the director and I'd be like, "I don't know what to do now. You take that over. You do that bit."

Does that partnership always go well for people around you as well?

Yeah. Well I suppose it's the thing I love about theatre. It's one of the one art forms that's all about collaboration. You can't to theatre alone, and it literally is collaboration, so you have to work with the actors. So if an actor says, "I can't say that line," you won't get anywhere if you go, "Well I wrote it. Say it." You have to work with them.

The magic of theatre is it's collaboration down to the person who's sewing a button on someone's shirt so it looks right. It's collaboration down to the person who sweeps the stage. It's collaboration down to the light designer, the sound designer, the set designer. Nothing happens without a group of people coming together and saying, "We're coming into this room and we're going to try and create something together."

If you write a book, it's very much yours. You've got pure creative control over it. Like, you work with an editor, but that world you're creating's yours. But in theatre, when I create a character, what a costume designer might do with that character might be completely different to what I had in my head. And it's hard. It's hard sometimes. Like, you would be having fights with people, you would be killing each other, but that's all part of it and that's what I love about it. And it's why I don't write film scripts, it's why I don't write books, it's why I write theatre.

'Cause we live in an age now where we've seen so many progressions in the way we experience culture, I guess. People used to go to the theatre and then there were movies and now there's Netflix. Have you found that people are still as interested in theatre and attending a theatre performance as they always have been? Or have people increased their interest in theatre? What's your experience there?

It's a tricky one. It's a tricky one. It's difficult to get people to come to theatre. It's very difficult, and because of Netflix and because of the cinema, and it's hard to get people in the door. I suppose you're trying to sell different playwrights to people as different authors or different filmmakers, so I do think it is difficult. On the flip side of that, I will contradict myself. I have seen a lot of younger playwrights come up and therefore a lot of younger people going to the theatre. But it's hard. Publicity for theatre is one of the main things that you have to push.

I do think it has changed. I think theatre has changed. I think Friel and all the classic playwrights, I don't really see a lot of that anymore, and I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I think we can always have respect for Friel and Shakespeare and the old school playwrights and we can also make room for the new playwrights. It's just about advertising it a way so people know if you're coming to see this place, you know what you're going to get. But in Waterford Theatre is alive and well. We're lucky with that. We're very lucky in Waterford 'cause we have Spraoi, we have a national street theatre festival, so we have a lot of arts in Waterford. Sheila Penkart has recently taken over Garter Lane Arts Centre, and she's worked in theatre since she was 11, so I'm incredibly excited to see what she'll do. But it's a constant battle to get people in the door. But I find once you have them in the door, they're hooked. We just have to get them in the door.

Yeah, this is the thing. The thrill that you get from a live performance cannot be rivalled by anything that you see on screen, and that's not to take away from movies. Obviously we enjoy movies and they tell a story, but I know for myself, there's nothing like a live performance and connecting with a character or a theme.

Absolutely. Like you have to nail on the head ... nailing it on the head there. The cinema's great, books are great, these are all extraordinary art forms, but when you're in a theatre, if theater's done well, you're feeling what the characters are feeling, you're in the courtroom, you're going through them with it and it's happening right in front of you. If you're lucky enough to see a group of extraordinary actors, you feel like you're living the story with them. That's why I much prefer to go to the theatre than to go to the cinema because, with the cinema, there is a block of screen, and also the magic of live theatre, you don't know what will happen every night. With a film, if you mess something up you can just do another take. You don't know how the audience will react. Sometimes the audience will laugh at one thing, they won't laugh at another, so you don't know. So every time that curtain goes up, who knows what will happen? Who knows what will happen? When things go wrong, they're the stories you're going to be laughing at 20 years from now. It's really magic 'cause you're watching human beings be live on stage, and you don't know what will happen. But as with like Netflix, you can pause it. Do you know? You can press pause when you're bored. That's exactly what I'd be selling. That's exactly the reason I sell theatre to people.

I'm sorry, I have to ask: obviously you're working with professionals and you have strategies with dealing with that, but what does happen when things go wrong? Is it just a matter of ploughing ahead or have you seen any real disasters?

I've worked with nine year olds, I've worked with amateurs, I've worked with professionals, and everything has gone wrong. Whether you're a professional or you're a nine-year-old child acting for the first time, what we say is keep going. You just keep going. You keep going. I've heard ... there's a hilarious story about this. There was a play, and there was a coffin on stage, and they had a mannequin in the coffin to play the body. The actor was giving a really big emotional speech and the head of the mannequin fell off and rolled across the front of the stage, and all he did was he walked down, picked up the mannequin and he said, "Right, well that's it then." You have to keep going and you have to have a sense of humour about it. Now, for the actors, it's the worst thing in the world to happen, but if you keep going, I guarantee you it'll be the best story to tell. It's the best story to tell.

I just love that so much. I mean, it's good. I think you do have to keep a light heart about that kind of thing, and you're making memories at the very least.

Yes, yes. Looking for the positive, always.

You just mentioned it there about you work with a lot of young people. In what ways do you think drama and creative writing are benefiting young people nowadays?

Well, one thing I think that theatre does for young people, it's very little to do with the play. I'd actually say the play, the end product, is the last on the list. I think what theatre does for people in general is give them confidence. It gives them confidence. So when we do drama classes, for me it gave me confidence, it saved me. I work with Shine Discovery, which is for people who are recovering from mental illness, and I work with young people. So what if none of them pursue a career in theatre? That has nothing to do with it. But the confidence they get, and they get a group of friends and they get a summer of memories and they get to laugh and they get to know it's okay to laugh at yourself. Like, they do. Do you know, it's like, "We're going to make a show of ourself here. If something goes wrong, doesn't matter at all. Doesn't matter. Laugh it off," and so their confidence soars. And whether it be with speech, or finding out who they are ...'Cause being young is really hard. I don't think young people get enough credit. You're 13, you're in a new school, you're trying to find yourself, you're trying to keep up with study, you're trying to keep your parents happy, you're trying to find friends, you're discovering the first pain of friends not lasting forever, you're trying to find out who you like, you're discovering alcohol, you're discovering drugs, and all this time you're expected to smile and be perfect. So if they can come into a room, and we run around and play games and we get to find out about each other and we get to discover empathy and, more importantly, they're told they have a voice and they matter. Even if that voice is saying, "I'm really angry at the world," that's incredibly important. A lot of them leave and go off to do other careers, but they carry the confidence with them that they got in drama. So that's actually what theatre does for people. It has very little to do with what the audience sees. It's teamwork, it's importance, it's responsibility, it's valuing you as a human, and it's telling the world that we care about you and if you're not here, this play isn't going to happen. That's how important you are. So that's what I think's the real magic of working with kids in theatre.

It sounds absolutely beautiful. As you know, this project is about developing confidence in people, and it's wonderful to hear that there's a medium out there, particularly in young people, help them during, as you said, what is quite a vulnerable time in their lives. Is it easy to recruit young people to come along and learn about drama and partake in your activities?

We have a huge membership at Waterford Youth Arts, but I suppose the barrier I feel when I say to young people, "Come and do drama," they think we all sit around wearing black, talking about Shakespeare sat down and I'm like, "We don't do that! Come along." So that's the barrier, I find. But I do believe, and I understand how difficult it is to walk into that room. It's very difficult to walk into a room for the first time, but if you can just make that first step, once you come in, you'll stay.

And what about the teaching side of things when it comes to writing and drama? Obviously, as you've just said, it's not just about coming out with a finished product, it's about developing all these special skills and individual skills as well. But is it easy to teach someone to think creatively and be involved in drama, or do you think that it really comes from the person themselves?

I think it definitely comes from the person itself. Well, I fully believe, hand on heart, there's not a single person who walks on this earth who is not creative. I fully believe that. So my role, as a tutor, is getting them to find their voice, getting them to find what they want to say, getting them to find their confidence in making their art. I can give them tips and tricks and formulas that they might find useful when they're trying to figure out what they want to create, but at the end of the day my main goal is to help them find their voice.

Like, when it comes to teach creative writing, I'm dyslexic. I left school quite early. I have no time whatsoever for marking someone's work or spelling or grammar. I tell you, when I teach creative writing, forget about spelling or grammar. Let's just get out what's in your head. I give them writing prompts. For example, with the 15 to 19s I'm working with, the most recent prompt I asked them to do was secrets. We all have a secret, so they all wrote down their secrets and swapped them with someone else, and that was a writing prompt. Or with my nine to 11 group, I asked them to bring in their favourite teddy bears, 'cause our teddies know everything about us, they know everything about us, and we wrote the adventures of our teddy bears, and that was extraordinarily beautiful. We had one teddy called Froggy who is afraid of water and hasn't been washed in all of his life.

What I find as well, with young people, if you give them that skill of their teddies, if they're feeling scared or they're worried, they find it easier to talk to the teddy. So they're able to say, "Well, Froggy's a bit scared of this," and then it's "That's okay." So it's able for them to talk through their problems without having to say it's me. So when I teach performers, when I teach drama, I just teach them the basics. I teach them blocking and focalization, I teach them that. But mainly I teach them the self-belief and confidence to walk out on stage.

It sounds like the impact you're having transcends the drama itself, which is just so wonderful. What about in terms of young people that you work with that do want to pursue a career in the arts? I know for myself and people around me growing up, pursuing a career in the arts could be dissuaded because it's perceived as an unstable career path. I was wondering, for yourself, have you experienced any negativity pertaining to wanting to be a playwright, or do you feel that the children that you work with have those fears as well?

Well, I've been quite lucky. I've been incredibly supported from my family and from my community and from my friends. But at the same time, I do acknowledge that it's a tough career. Like, financially, I'm quite lucky. I don't have a mortgage, I don't have a family, I don't have kids, so I just have to look after myself, and I know a lot of people who are professionals in this career and are still not financially rewarded. What I always say to people when they say, "I want to study creative writing," I always say you do what you need to do. If you need to study theatre or creative writing, don't get to 90 years old and regret it. You have time. You can study creative writing and drama, and if it doesn't work out you can go back to college as a mature student. What I always say to someone who's unsure, I say you never have to give it up. You can be a nurse, you can be a guard, you can be any other career in this world and you can still write, you can still perform. This is not something that will ever be taken away from you. It's not a direct choice. And obviously the people will say, "I don't want to study it." I'm like, "Cool, best of luck but please come back and visit."

But it's tough, and I'm not a parent but I can imagine the anxiety that parents have when their child wants to do it, because it's a tough business when you go to your fifth audition and you don't get the part, or you get your age rejection letter, and you need the support of someone sitting there and telling you it's okay. It is a tough business to get into, but it just comes back to it's you don't want to regret that you didn't give it a shot. Like, there is time. You can try it. And if it doesn't work out, so what? You'll get memories, you'll have learned a lesson, you can keep it up, you can go on to teach creative writing, you can go on to teach drama, you can do an amateur production of a play. It doesn't end. But if you're 18, you have nothing to lose, you have no one else to look after in this world, apart from yourself, go for it. Go for it. What's the worst that could happen?

On the flip side of that, if you're 50 and you've had your job and you're kids are reared and you think maybe now I could write a play, do it. Do it. Do it. Absolutely, do it. If the thoughts in your head, do it. What's the worst that could happen? Someone will say they don't like it and you tell them to go away. That's just one person's opinion. Do you know?

That's exactly right. So what? I do feel that sometimes we're so caught up in other people's opinions that we forget that it's okay to live and just do what we want to do. If we're not hurting other people, why not give it a go?

Absolutely. And look, I'm not saying I don't get hurt from people saying I didn't like the play, but it's part of it. You have to go, "Yeah," and do you know what? It's better to have the audience halved and one half saying I liked it and one half saying the other liked it. The worst thing in the world is a group of people to come out and say, "It was nice." Nice! Steak is nice. I'd much prefer for someone to be so angry by hating the play and have an emotional reaction rather than going, "It's grand, yeah."

Actually, I've never thought of that before, but that must be so true. I think, yeah, I'd rather polarise reactions than the word nice, for sure.

Yeah.

And so we've covered it a little bit. You say you've experienced negativity and you move on. What about performance itself, or even the idea of presenting your work to other people? Do you ever feel nervous about doing that and, if so, how do you tackle those nerves?

Yeah, I'm terrified constantly. I'm terrified on a daily basis. If I send an email to someone, I am terrified, and when it gets to opening night of one of my plays, I freak out. I completely freak out. It's agony. Do you know? It's tough. It's very, very, very tough. I don't have a solution. I don't have a magic solution. All I know is that it's worth it when the audience say or the actors say or someone says it had an impact on them. I think self-doubt. In any creative business you're always battling with self-doubt, you're always going, "I'm rubbish. This is rubbish. Who do I think I am to be a writer? Everyone's going to hate it." And it's part and parcel of it. It's part and parcel of it. You have to find ways to cope.

I walk a lot. I find exercise genuinely saves my mental health. I talk to my friends, my very close friends about it, and I cry a lot. I cry a lot. I cry so much. But I think it's important to release it out of your body in some way, because if you keep it inside you, you're just going to end up being unwell, so if you can find a way to get it out of your body, I think is the only advice I can offer. And do you know what? If you feel that nervous about it, then it means you care about it 'cause you're having to put a lot of your heart into it, so it's a good thing to be nervous.

And what about your experience as a woman in the performing arts industry? Obviously it sounds like you've had a very supported career and that you're surrounded by supportive people. Would you say that women are well represented in your field?

Yes and no. We had to....in the feminist campaign that hit the Abbey Theatre, which is the national theatre of Ireland, two years ago, and it was making the point that it was a lot of male writers that had been chosen by the Abbey in the recent years, and it was making a point of women being underrepresented and represented in the arts.

To be honest, it's a tricky one and I struggle with it. I wouldn't want to see a situation where five females and five males have been chosen because we need five females. I think it should always come down to talent. I think in every show I've worked with there's been equal men and women been involved, but I do think it's a campaign worth noting because I don't think it was always that way and I do think there is still battles with women being asked to take lower wages and having to fight your way to top, and there are horrible people you meet who make sexist comments and I don't think that's representative of the industry, I think it's representative of horrible men, but they are in the industry and I'd like to see that broken down that there's a way where you don't have to engage with them. You can get around it. But, in my opinion, like, both of our theatres in Waterford are being run by Mary Boland and Sheila Penkart. They're the strongest women in Waterford Theatre, so I'm quite lucky living in Waterford. I'm surrounded by strong female role models and there's even more coming up. But I do think it's a question we should be asking ourselves as society.

There's been a lot more information about this kind of thing recently, so I know there have been in studies, in academia, showing that if a person's name is put on a list and the gender is revealed or the gender is inferred by their name, that men will often be put to the top of the pile or selected over a woman. In the theatre industry, are there ways to combat that? In a selection of plays, is it possible to remove people's names so that it is based on the play itself and not the person associated with it?

Yes, that is possible, and my name is Martina. I've often thought about, when I submit plays, would I change it to Martin? And I didn't out of principle. I refused to. I think the danger of removing the playwright's name for the posters is you're taking away the credit to the playwright. But that is a solution, do you know, and I think it's very important we're having the conversation. Let's find solutions, and even if 50 of those solutions are wrong or don't work, we're having the conversation.

Now, that would just be my opinion. A lot of people would say the playwright has nothing to do with it because it's on stage at this point, so it should be regardless whether the playwright's name is mentioned. But I would just argue back for the playwrights it's important to have the acknowledgement of the name on the poster.

Yeah, and I can absolutely see, of course you put all that work in, and it also has implications for future work for you as well obviously if you're names on a poster or whether it's not. It's a very complicated issue. How do you get to the root of that problem and that bias that's still in there?

Absolutely. I'm intrigued by the fact it's so complicated. I'm like, well, let's keep talking about it, 'cause anything worth doing never had an easy answer, and if it has an easy answer I think it would've been done years ago. But I think it's so important this dialogue is opened and it's talked about with people within the industry, people outside the industry, how do they perceive it? Male, female, transgender, everyone needs to be involved in this conversation until we find a solution for it. Because we can't bury our heads in the sand and say, "Oh, that's too difficult." I think as society, as the world, we need to address yeah, there's been a problem, women been oppressed for years. Just because we're not oppressed anymore, just because we're fighting and we've risen doesn't mean that we're not still holding onto old habits that need to be erased from the way we speak about women, the way that we address and acknowledge women, and it's just keep conversation open.

What are your thoughts then, as a woman in the performing arts industry, on the recent MeToo campaign? Obviously this is a huge ... there are many campaigns around the world, there've been people for many years discussing these issues, but obviously this has blown up and it's very topical at the moment. Do you have any thoughts and opinions about that campaign or things pertaining to it?

Yes, absolutely. I suppose I might get in trouble for saying this. I'm a bit controversial on the MeToo campaign to be brutally honest. My problem with the MeToo campaign is this is brilliant, we're finally breaking silence. Absolutely. I am 100% behind it. I can't imagine the pain of women who have suffered this. But my problem with it is it's blown up, it's everywhere, it's on Twitter, you can't escape it even if you want to, and I'd be very concerned the counselling services been put in place for women who have suffered this abuse.

In Ireland, counselling for survivors of sexual abuse is very limited, and recently the MeToo campaign broke in Ireland. I'd be very concerned about women who are very distraught, very upset, open wounds have happened, and they're on Twitter asking for someone to help them. So that's one of my concerns with the MeToo campaign.

My other concern with the MeToo campaign, we have a court of law. Whether we like it or not, that's our court of law and we have to abide by it, because if we start taking the law into our own hands we're going to end up destroying each other. Literally destroying each other. And what I'd say to the MeToo campaign, I'd like to see the MeToo campaign as tackling the court of law.

In Ireland, there's one per cent, one per cent of conviction of rape cases, and the way a woman is treated in rape or sexual assaults in Ireland is disgusting. It's the only crime, it is the only crime where the victim is a liar until proven innocent and you're underwear is shown to you in court and you go through eight days of cross-examination, and if you had any alcohol in you you're just not believed. So I would like to see this campaign move forward fighting for counselling and also fighting for conviction of rapists.

I heard a brilliant quote. Someone said, "My experiences deserve more than a MeToo hashtag on Twitter." Twitter is 160 characters. How can you put what happened to you into 160 characters? I think it's brilliant that we're vocalising it, but I think we need to follow up the vocalisation with action, and I think the law needs to stand up and admit that they've been treating women horrifically and they need to change the law. Because, at the minute, I can't actually imagine why anyone would go to the police if they'd been raped because you're treated horribly. You're treated like you're the one who committed the crime. In Ireland, for example, if you go to a sexual assault and rape clinic, you're asked is there mental illness or alcoholism in your family? If you're stabbed you're not asked that. What does that have to do with the fact that you've just been raped?

I'm delighted, I'm really, perversely I'm using the word delighted, that it's been acknowledged, because for years women, and men who've been raped as well, have just had to get over it themselves and know there is no justice for it and that's it. And particularly with Facebook and camera phones now, that's an issue that needs to be addressed. People are having pictures taken of them and put up without their consent. So it's great, but I'd like to see us moving forward with it and putting in practical solutions and help for women that just has not been there.

You have articulated your thoughts on that absolutely beautifully, and I must say that I mirror a lot of those sentiments. I find it very concerning the idea of a trial by social media, and I also feel that in today's day and age it's very easy to become complacent, that we feel that if we comment online and don't actually do any action in the real world that that is participating and actually helping to change things, and I think that's only very true on a very limited scale. It's very good, as you said, to talk about things and get the knowledge out there, but at the end of the day action is what is going to change things, and I think that's a beautiful perspective. Thank you so much for sharing that.

Thank you very much. Thanks a million.

Moving on, I think it's a really good time actually to introduce talking about the Repeal the 8th campaign that you have been a fierce campaigner for yourself. You obviously have very strong opinions and are very passionate about topics pertaining to women and women's rights. For those overseas who aren't aware of the Repeal the 8th campaign, are you able to tell us what the campaign is about and why you support it so strongly?

Yes. I've spoken to a lot of my friends who are overseas, and they found it incredibly shocking when I told them what Repeal the 8th is. So, the 8th Amendment, basically if you're pregnant in Ireland, under no circumstances can you have access to an abortion. That includes rape, that includes if your life is in danger, that includes if you're told your child won't live, you still have to carry that child. That includes if you have had an accident and you're on life support. If the foetus has a beating heart, you will be kept on life support.

Wow.

It's very, very, very restrictive. Under no circumstances, under no circumstances are you able to access an abortion in Ireland. Abortion pills are illegal. If you're caught taking an abortion pill you can face up to seven years in prison, I think. So our option at the minute for thousands of Irish women is to travel to England for an abortion, and that costs a lot of money. It's averaging a thousand Euro to get over there, including flights and including the money for the procedure once you get over there. We have heard horrific cases, we have heard horrendous cases.

In 1991, there was case X. She was a 14-year-old girl who was raped by a man known to the family, and became pregnant. She decided she wanted to have an abortion and her mother was going to go with her, and the family told the Guards that they were going over there because they just wanted them to know, and they also were hoping would there be any evidence that they could get to try and identify the man and get him convicted. They were stopped from going and that girl was forced to remain pregnant. At 14, raped, she was forced to remain pregnant. They eventually went to court, and she eventually ended up having a miscarriage. But if she hadn't miscarried, that 14-year-old child would've been forced to remain pregnant. Most recently, last year, a teenager requested an abortion, and she was put into a psychiatric ward and was forced to remain pregnant.

Now, they're the extreme cases on the most basic level. No woman in Ireland has the rights to her own body. No woman. We have to be forced to remain pregnant against our will, so if we're suffering mental illness, if we just don't want to have that pregnancy for whatever reason, whether it be cases of rape, whether it be an abusive situation, whether it be financial strain, whether it be that they're in college and they want to live their own life, whether they feel they have three children and they can't afford to feed them, whether it be their last child was a stillborn and they can't go through with another pregnancy, it doesn't matter. You have to leave your own country to access basic healthcare.

Look, I must say it blows my mind, and I am actually at a loss for words. I mean, this is 2018, and I firmly believe that my body is my body and what I do with it is my right, and so I would love to believe that there's enough support in the community to repeal the 8th. But the fact that it's still there is concerning, from what you've said. So what is the feeling like in your community at the moment? Are you confident that the 8th will be repealed, or is there still strong resistance to keeping it there?

I'm terrified. We're going to have a vote in May and we're campaigning, we're canvassing, we're going door to door, we're doing stalls, but I'm genuinely worried. I'm really worried whether it's going to come true or not because the Pro Life are against the 8th Amendment being repealed. They've got a huge amount of money and also they're quite aggressive with their lies. They tend to tell lies, and they tend to also pull on the heartstrings. Like, they're going around saying, "Oh, if abortion is allowed in Ireland a woman can have abortion at nine months." That's absolute lies and its ridiculous. But they are pulling on the heartstrings and they're very emotionally abusive, I think. So I'm genuinely worried.

In the past five years, there's been a huge uprising, a huge uprising for Repeal the 8th. There's a woman I work with, Sue Larkin, she's been fighting for this for 35 years. That's a very long time, and she said when she used to go out 30 years ago, people would throw bottles at them, they'd release dogs on them, they'd call them murderers. You might get three people to go to an event because people were so afraid to say that they were pro-choice, but it was happening. It was happening. Thousands of people were going to England. So in the last five years there's been a huge, huge uprise, and there've been T-shirts and jumpers done, and it's starting to feel like there's a community behind it. Anyone who's going to vote no on this is crazy and is ridiculous because they're trying to control a woman's body. But I don't know, I think it'd be very dangerous at this stage to say we have it in the bag. I think the whole world is looking at Ireland to see what you're going to do, and I hope that pressure will put it forward, but I'm going to keep canvassing and hopefully we will make a difference.

And what about the idea of the referendum itself? This is something that I'm not sure of what my opinion is on it, but the idea of a referendum sounds wonderful, it's very democratic, but we're talking about a decision pertaining to someone's body, and you're allowing the masses to make that decision when you would hope that the people that you have elected to parliament have the good sense and the education and understanding to be able to pass these things in parliament without referring to the people.

As we've seen in recent years, I mean, just because there's a referendum, doesn't mean that sensible choices will be made, and I don't need to go into anymore detail about that. Are you happy with the path of a referendum? Do you think this is the only way to change it in Ireland at the moment?

No, I'm not really ... What happened in Ireland before Christmas, they had a thing called the Eighth Committee, so they had people who've been directly affected from both sides give their say on it. So they had a wonderful woman speaking about foetal fatal abnormality, and they had people from the Pro Life side, and this went on for weeks. I followed it and I genuinely thought that was enough. I thought that was enough because they had hundreds of women saying this has affected me directly, and the cruelty of the journey of travelling. But it's our legal system and I have to abide by it. Whether I agree with it or not I have to abide by it.

I do hope the people of Ireland will make the right decision because what's bizarre at the minute is there's no aftercare for women when they come home, and we're all pretending like this isn't happening. It's 12 women a day are making an horrific journey. It was admitted that at least one woman bled out flying home. When you go over there, you're told, once you've gotten the procedure, to go to a cinema because it's warm, and if you collapse there'll be people around you to help you. When you return home, you're expected to go to work on Monday morning.

It's very difficult to find counselling that isn't from the Pro Life side. Just physical aftercare, it's not there. You're given Panadol and you're expected to be silent about this. Even if you are 100% sure you're making the right decision, this is one of the hardest things you're going to have to do in your life, and you have to carry it around by yourself, so if Ireland is saying abortion is illegal, they're completely ignoring 12 women a day who are travelling.

I heard a great thing. A couple moved to Ireland from America because they thought that Ireland didn't allow abortion that we had great care for people with disabilities. And we don't. But they presumed because abortion is illegal we've got all these supports. We don't at all. We don't at all. And there's a group, People with Disabilities for Choice, and they're making the point, well, what if I have a disability and I want to have an abortion? So there is a huge, huge uprise, but it is shocking. Ireland is very, very shocking with the way we treat women.

I always find that very interesting that you on one hand don't provide the support to women to enable them to have control of their bodies and have an abortion, and then on the flip side of that also don't provide support. It's almost like an extension of punishment to women: yes we're not going to allow you rights to your body and if you do take that path, we're not going to support you and give you the help that you need afterwards to make you a happy and healthy person in society. It just blows my mind, in short.

Absolutely. For a single mother, there isn't a lot of financial support and it's very difficult to get that support. You're treated horribly by the system. We have a housing crisis at the minute. Do you know, a lot of families are homeless at the minute. A lot of families are homeless at the minute. If you do choose to have the baby, it's impossible to get counselling after a pregnancy. There's no support. There's no support for any kind of pregnancy. And contraceptive isn't free. Contraceptive is not free in Ireland. You have to get the contraceptive pill on prescription from your doctor. Condoms aren't free. Our sex education is horrendous. There's no sex education for gay or transgender people. So what I'd say to the government, how about you put a lot of money into fixing the housing crisis, how about we allow free non-catholic, non-religion-based sex education that actually answers people's questions, and free contraceptive. And then when they've done all that, they can say, "We don't want abortion here."

That's a very, very valid point. And the idea that church and state are still so intertwined is very, very concerning. What about the topic of abortion itself? Obviously it's a very serious one. There are probably women who are listening to this who are Pro Life and don't agree with it, but in particular if you do support abortion, it tends to leave women open for attack in a variety of horrendous ways. I was wondering, have you personally experienced any negativity about your beliefs and, if so, how do you cope with those attacks?

I do. I do. I experience a lot of negativity. I have no problem talking to someone who's Pro Life and we can debate it calmly, and more often than not we have to shake hands 'cause I'm trying to change their mind and they're trying to change my mind and it's not going to happen, so we just have to part ways and leave it go. But there is the extremists who will call you a murderer, who will scream at you. And the way I cope with it is because I know right now, on a plane, there is 12 women going through the worst day of their life, and they are hoping someone is going to do something about it. So if I wear a jumper, if I have a protest, if I buy a badge, if I have a conversation, it's me helping those women in a tiny, tiny way. And you know what? Abortion is very upsetting. No one wants to have an abortion. There is not a single person in this world who wants to have an abortion. It's a crisis pregnancy. Crisis. And they deserve our support as well. And often people who have an abortion, they are thinking about the child. They don't want to bring the child into their circumstances or this world for a reason, and they should be given support in making that choice. In terms of negativity, it's getting very hot here in Ireland, it's getting very heated, and I think it's going to get worse in the next couple of weeks. I just have to practise self-care. I need to be warm a lot. I find being warm helps me, or exercise. And not engaging with it. Do you know, if someone is becoming abusive, I would never become abusive to someone who is Pro Life. I respect your opinion, I respect that you would never make the choice to have an abortion, but how can you take that choice away from someone else?

That's exactly right. And what would your advice be to Irish women out there who may be pregnant or lack access to contraception and feel they have no options? I mean, you're obviously very aware of the campaign, you know the ins and outs of the law, are there support services you can recommend that they may be able to access?

Women on the Web is a fantastic service, and they can offer you advice. My main thing to women is when you're googling, be careful of the sites you look up, because sometimes sites you're looking up is Pro Life and they're trying to change your mind. And now it can be easily solved by just clicking on whatever site you look up and making sure that they're not trying to lead you in one way. And also to contact clinics in England. BPAS, B-P-A-S, is fantastic. They're a brilliant clinic. They can offer you counselling, they can offer you options, they're going to explain exactly what's going to happen to you. They look after you and they'll take care of you. Unfortunately, they're looking after Irish women, 'cause we won't look after them at home. But they are a fantastic service and they will look after you.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. I can't imagine the fear that a woman must feel not being able to access services that she so desperately needs. I'm sure that even if one woman knows that there is now a site that they can at least go to or some way that they can maybe get out of their situation, I'm sure that is a huge help. Concerning the campaign itself, what if there are women who want to support the campaign but don't really know what to do or how to go about it, do you have any advice for them?

Yes, absolutely. Well, if you're in Waterford you can contact Pro Choice Waterford. We're on Facebook, Twitter, and our email is [email protected]. What we are saying to people is, 'cause a lot of people want to get involved in the campaign but they're saying we don't have time or we don't really feel comfortable standing on streets, so we offer a wide range of things you can do to help.

If you've got half an hour spare and you can drop some leaflets in your area, that would be a fantastic help 'cause we can't get to everywhere. We're based in the city centre. If you would like to sell some badges or T-shirts, that would be brilliant for us if you want to take five away. If you'd like to help us set up a table quiz, because it is quite negative, so if we have a night out and we're all supportive of each other, that would be fantastic. If you want to share us on Facebook, that would be great. If you could give us a like, even to build up a community. If you'd like to write a letter, this'd be very important. Writing a letter to your local newspaper — letters to the editor have to be printed — just on why you're supporting Repeal the 8th. If you're national in Ireland, you can get involved in the Abortion Rights Campaign, if you're across the seas and you want to help, you can order merchandise from the Abortion Rights Campaign. All money goes back into the campaign and it would greatly help us. So if you just check out the Abortion Rights Campaign, Pro Choice Waterford, we've loads of events coming up, and even literally, it sounds stupid, but if you can buy a mug for a fiver it would be a huge help for all that money to go back into this campaign.

Fantastic. And what I love about that, as you said, there are so many ways that you can hep that can fit in with your lifestyle and your ability and your ability to speak out, because I understand there may even be women who are really in support of this but can't speak out because of their certain situation at home or whatever it may be, so that's wonderful that you have so many avenues that women can access.

Yes, absolutely.

You said you're on Facebook as well, and I have to draw attention to that because a lot of people do use Facebook nowadays, and so sorry, is it Repeal the 8th at Facebook? Is that what you're campaign is?

Yes. We're on Pro Choice Waterford. If you type in Repeal the 8th at Facebook, you'll find all the Repeal the 8th pages, and you can find the national one and the local one just so you can find out more information. If you want more information on what the 8th Amendment is in Ireland, you can find it all there.

Moving a little bit to a little bit more about you. Obviously you are an amazing woman, you're achieving great things professionally, you're a writer, you've achieved your dream of working as a playwright, you're also helping young people, you're also very educated and supportive of women rights generally with your involvement with the Repeal the 8th campaign. We've already spoken a little bit about confidence, but everything that you do really requires confidence, and you, yourself, have acknowledged how important confidence is. So, how do you foster confidence in yourself? Is it something that you actively have to think about, or do you think it's something that is innate within you?

Well, I was never very, very confident, and I still would freak out and get very anxious about even sending an email. I suppose someone said to me once, and it was a brilliant thing, "No one is confident, but we all pretend we are." So if you are scared and if you are nervous, pretend you're confident. And I do that daily. I'll meet someone for coffee, I'll give a talk, I'll write, I'll go to the open night of my play and I'll come home and I'll collapse in exhaustion, and I'll allow myself then to be scared.

When it comes to learning to be confident, it's very difficult for anyone in this life to be confident, but if you smile and if you can pretend you're confident and if you can get passionate about something, if you're really passionate about something, I think confidence comes hand in hand, 'cause if you really care and if you really want to make a difference, you will find confidence to shout.

When I was younger, I was very scared of everything, and I still remain to be scared, but I'm so passionate about Repeal the 8th and I'm so passionate about young people being given a chance, I find myself standing up then and going, "No, we need to fight for this. We need to fight for this," 'cause we only have one life and if you do anything in your life, be kind to each other or help someone. But it's a daily battle and I think a lot of people listening to this will recognise that. It's a daily, daily battle.

For some women, makeup. I find when I wear makeup, when I'm particularly nervous, gives me a confidence boost. I don't know why. I think mainly, if I'm wearing foundation, no one can see me when I go red. When I get embarrassed, no one ... And such a simple thing. It's such a simple thing, but it helps me so much. When I wear high heels I feel confident, because I'm quite short, so I feel confident when I'm wearing high heels. Like, little tricks. Tricks. That's all they are is tricks. Water. Whenever I go anywhere I need to have water with me 'cause my mouth gets very dry. When my mouth gets dry I start panicking, I start gasping. So, little tricks. You only know it about yourself, you know? Some people say it gets easier when you get older, but any person I know who's older says it doesn't, it gets worse. You just get better at pretending. You get better at pretending. And it's hard. It's hard. Life is hard. Do you know, life is like one really bad awkward day that doesn't end, and we have to keep going. And laugh at yourself. Oh God, when it comes to confidence, laugh at yourself. I get so embarrassed and worked up over little things, and this is something I'm still learning to do. I get so upset over nothing and so I'm trying to learn to laugh at myself and going, "It doesn't matter and it'll be fine," and most of the time things end up being fine.

I'll tell you what, everything you've said resonates so much with me. I must say, it's so true about finding what works for you. I mean, what helps with someone else's confidence may not work with yours, and I think that holding that with you ... If wearing makeup is enough to get you through the day or through an interview or whatever it is that you're going through, if that works for you, go for it. There's no harm, is there, in doing what works for you.

Not at all. Absolutely not. And it comes back to caring what people think. I heard a great quote: "When we're younger we worry about what people think of us. When we're older we don't care what they think of us. When we're old enough, we realise they weren't thinking about us at all."

Do what's best for you. Wear high heels. If you need anti-anxieties, if you need medication, use it. If you need water, if you need makeup. And if anyone says you're stupid for them, they've just got their own insecurities that they're trying to put onto you. So it's very important to recognise that they have stuff they're working through. It's nothing to do with you. Do what works for you because it's your life. It's your life. And it's hard. Do whatever makes it easy on you.

On yourself. That's right. And you only get one life so try and enjoy it as much as you can.

Exactly, yes…you're like. I mean, when it comes to it, we all know we're all going to the grave. The last person to latch down is the undertaker. You don't want to be going down with worry, and life's too short to be worrying. Look, I'm saying that and I spent all day yesterday worrying. I'm not saying I have it down to a tee, I'm just saying I'm trying to laugh as much as possible.

As well as encouraging confidence in women. We want women to stand up and be proud of what they do, and so I wanted to know what it is today that you're most proud of. When I say that, it can be with your writing, it can be with the Repeal the 8th, it might be something completely different, but you're very accomplished. What is it something that deep down you are really proud of that you've achieved?

That's a really tough question. It's a really difficult question. It's a really tough one. I suppose one of my proudest moments, and there's different levels of pride in your life. One of my proudest moments was when I got my first paycheck and I cashed it. I went home and I was able to give very small money to my mam and my dad and my sister, 'cause they supported me, they gave me money, they gave me dinner, they gave me love when I didn't deserve it, they gave me everything. And that was just a wonderful moment of all the years they spent collecting me, having dinners ready for me, giving me money when they had nothing, giving me everything, showing up to plays. It was a wonderful moment walking in the door at home. And it wasn't money, it was able to say thank you. It was able to say thank you. And I'll never be able to thank them. You can't thank them for everything they've done for me. But what an extraordinary moment to go, "You've supported me all this way and I got paid for it. People applauded and you were in the audience and thanks." And, you know, we got chips out of it and we had a great night and it was just a lovely, lovely moment. It was a lovely moment.

And just on that, I know you only asked me to say one, but when we did a Repeal the 8th protest and I was standing on Ballybricken and it was freezing cold and we genuinely thought no one was going to show up, I looked down and there was about nine or 10 of my friends. I knew they were going to walk down that quay with me if it was only the 10 of us. It was only the 10 of us and that was such a proud moment because I know if I've done nothing else in my life, I've gathered these wonderful humans and they love me enough that they will walk with me anywhere, and they're all wonderful. How lucky am I to have them as friends, and how lucky am I to have them as friends who go, "All right. Grand, girl. You want to do a march. Okay, we're with you. Okay, this is a bit crazy but yeah, we'll go with you." So those are the moments that stand out.

I just love that response so much. For me, it's the fact that, as you said, you can have pride in so many levels in your life and those are very different places to have pride, but they also revolve around the people in your life and how they've helped you too, which I think speaks bountifully about the kind of person that you are, so congratulations on those achievements. I was just sitting there thinking about that feeling you would've had, being able to go home and do that for your family. That would've been amazing.

Thank you so much. Thank you so so so much.

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