Boris remains hell-bent on Brexit – even if it causes mass destruction

World of Politics with Harry McGee

Brian Friel’s Faith Healer is a seminal work that was cutting edge for its time – and at its core it might be at allegory for the debacle that we know as Brexit. As it suggests, it’s about a faith healer who goes from place to place in Wales and Scotland curing people from various ailments.

It takes the form of separate monologues, each delivered by the three main characters – the faith healer, his wife, and the impresario/agent who puts the whole show on the road. The monologues are poetic and the language is just beautiful.

It opens with the faith healer Francis Hardy reciting all the very evocative names of the Scottish villages they pass through, almost like a poem.

We understand that he has a gift (for healing) but can’t control it. The scéal is then developed, about this tough family, whose sibling is an invalid, who threaten the faith healer with a bad end if he can’t cure their brother.

The play is an allegory for the creative process; for the uncontrollable and hard-to-explain gift that writers have. They can’t control it; sometimes it leads them to self-destruction.

What I always found hard to swallow was the fact that Frank knew his powers were not going to work and went ahead anyway with a doomed attempt to cure the invalid, knowing that he himself would meet a calamitous end when he failed.

So do you see what I’m trying to get at here?

Yes, it’s Brexit – and the message from Friel’s play is this.

Everyone knows it’s going to end badly but they still continue to hurtle along to that terrible conclusion knowing there is no cure, no magic that can fix it.

We have a Tory Party with an irredentist wing that wants a return to the Britain of the mid-19th century. We have a prime minster who is a self-promoting populist with a particular talent for mendacity.

We have a Labour Party led by a man who secretly wants Brexit because he hates Europe but is too cowardly to admit it.

And we have the Tory government propped up by the DUP.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app

The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City  and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.