The Irish News Belfast Interview by Robert McMillen October 22, 1999
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ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS... the recent success of the BBC1 mini-series Pure Wickedness has brought Orla Brady fame across the UK and Europe

DISEMBOWEL yourself with rusty razor blades rather than watch this movie, screamed one reviewer of Orla Brady’s new film A Love Divided.

The internet critic decided that the film was a chamber-pot brimful of stale caricatures and that the “main theme of the film is the big Daddy-O of Irish cliches ­ religious strife”.

Needless to say, the Dublin-born actress disagrees vehemently about a film she has become very close to.

A Love Divided tells the true story of Sheila and Sean Cloney, a couple who meet in London in 1949. Sheila is Protestant, Sean a Catholic, and when they marry they do it three times ­ first in a register office, then in a Protestant church and finally in their local Catholic church in the small seaside village of Fethard-on-Sea in Co Wexford.

The couple live happily, working on their farm and are blessed with two girls.

Religion is not an issue for them or the rest of the townsfolk, each goes to their own place of worship and meet after the service to buy milk or have a gossip.

That was to change as the eldest of Sean and Sheila’s children reached school age. The Ne Temere decree obliged parents in mixed marriages to bring the children up as Catholics.

The parish priest presumes that the Cloney’s eldest daughter Mary will be going to the local Catholic school, but Sheila feels it is a decision for her and husband.

When they express doubt, the parish priest, Fr Stafford, is insistent that the couple have signed a solemn pledge and that there is no alternative but to send the child to the Catholic school.

On this is built the crux of the film ­ whether the bond between a husband and a wife is more important than influences put on it from outside.

When Sheila walks her daughter to the Catholic school knowing it is not what she wanted, it becomes more than just a question of what school Mary should go to.

At the school gates she turns on her heels and leaves Mary at Fethard’s small Protestant school (which incidentally has a Catholic teacher).

It is not long before Fr Stafford arrives, moves the child out of school and takes her to her father and reminds him of his obligations, putting Sean on the horns of a dilemma.

Under immense pressure, Sean yields to the priest’s demands.

When he tells Sheila he is “doing what’s best”, Sheila feels that it is he and the priest making the decision that should be made between her and her husband and her world is turned upside down.

“Their relationship is her religion, her rock, her centrifugal force,” says Orla.

“Sheila is serious about her faith and religion but to her, the pledge she makes with Sean is the real marriage. Desperately and passionately in love, she has to know he shares her vision, which he says he does.”

When Sean bends in the face of opposition, Sheila is devastated.

“She feels let down”, explains Orla. “She believes completely in their pledge to one another and feels that Sean puts it second, not central to their relationship when he yields. The marriage has never been tested or faced conflict like this, so it goes from very happy to shaken very quickly.”

Sheila’s decision to run away is a “radical move she makes without thinking of the implications. To Sheila this is an affair of the heart but to Sean it is a point of principle, a moral obligation to his faith,” continues Orla.

“Sheila is rigid in her convictions, Sean on the other hand can see no scope for compromises. When they argue she declares: ‘This is not about school, this is about us, we have to be true to ourselves’.”

“Everything feels wrong ­ her marriage is not rock solid anymore,” says Orla. “She rebels against men making the decisions and is the first woman to challenge their insular and hierarchical society.

“She is excluded from the decision and if she could compromise she would, but it is against her nature to do so.”

To Orla, Sheila’s experience at the school gate clutching her child’s hand is a life-changing moment.

“Her gut reaction is that is wrong. She has an innate sense of right and is sure in her heart, She goes a bit mad with all this conflict between head and heart.”

When Sheila flees to Belfast, events are accelerated and career out of control.

Fr Stafford instigates a sectarian boycott of all Protestant business in the village until the Cloney children are returned to their father.

“Sheila suffers greatly throughout all of this,” says Orla. “She is completely unhinged by it and can see the pain and devastation her actions have initiated but she knows she has come too far and to go back would be to give in.”

Sheila sees her only choice as self-imposed exile as she lives a penitential existence in the Orkney Islands off the Scottish coast.

“She punishes herself and works herself to the bone so that she doesn’t feel anything. She can’t bear the enormity of her situation.” And enormous it was. The boycott came to an end when de Valera became involved, and the Papal Nuncio saw that it could be used as counter-propaganda in the ideological battlefields of the cold war, and even Basil Brooke warned that the boycott was a foretaste of how Protestants would be treated in a united Ireland.

The love story between one man and one woman had international repercussions, but Orla says a lot of people miss the point when they see it simply as the story of the Fethard-on-Sea boycott.

“It’s not a documentary. It is about one woman and her determination to honour the vow she made to her husband in the face of huge pressure to conform,” she says.

Orla was born in Dublin and by her own admission was a serious child, not the kind of child who pranced about for the delight of her parents’ friends.

“We were lucky in that we lived near to a theatre and from that grew my love of acting,” she says.

“Theatre is such a wonderful experience for children, helping their imagination to grow and I still have wonderful memories of those early plays and pantomimes and shows.”

It was the inspiration that would lead her to her own career treading the boards, with rave reviews in Playboy of the Western World, The Fall of the House of Usher, Rebecca (at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast) and Philadelphia, Here I Come. She has also toured Europe as Ophelia in Hamlet.

But it is her TV work that shows the range of Orla’s talent. She has made guest appearances in comedies such as The Vicar of Dibley and Absolutely Fabulous.

She also appeared in one of the Cracker series but her recent high-profile success in ITV’s Pure Wickedness mini-series where she starred opposite Kevin Whately has given her career a huge boost.

But does Orla always feel driven into highly-charged emotional parts?

“A director once said that I found it easy to access darkness and extreme states. I like extremity. I’m always keen on parts where someone goes right off the edge or contemplates suicide or murder. Those roles are lovely and cathartic to play.

“There’s certain enjoyment in performing them well. It’s like free therapy,” she laughs.

Whatever the buzz Brady gets from these darker roles it looks like we can expect to see a lot more of her on the big and small screen in the foreseeable future.

After our chat at the Hilton it was a case of upping and catching a flight to Budapest where Orla is filming her next movie.

Nice work if you can get it.

FACtFILE

Name: Orla Brady


Age: Mid-30s

Marital status: Single


Film credits: A Love Divided,
Words Upon the Window Pane.



Television credits: Leprechauns
Pure Wickedness
Wuthering Heights
Noah’s Ark
The Heart Surgeon
The Vicar of Dibley ­ Christmas Special 1996
Out of the Blue
Dangerfield
The Rector’s Wife
Absolutely Fabulous
So You Think You’ve Got Troubles


Theatre credits: Blinded By The Sun
Playboy of the Western World
The Fall of the House of Usher
A Love Song For Ulster (Trilogy)
Philadelphia, Here I Come
Three Sisters
Hamlet
The House of Bernarda Alba
Rebecca


Currently working on The Follower ­ an Irish film by Maeve Murphy, and Luzhin Defence with John Tarturo and Emily Watson on location in Budapest.