Writer and performer Patrick Quinn introduces his debut one-man show Revved, which tours Donegal this July as part of this year's Earagail Arts Festival programme.
My play Revved is first and foremost an honest interrogation into growing up in one of the greatest counties, if not one of the most complex and frustrating, Donegal.
Time moves differently up here in this tumultuous, crabbit, isolated piece of paradise. The minutes stretch out before you like a cat yawning lazily in the sun.
A bus that arrives 15 minutes late is deemed to have arrived early. Our accents are as thick as butter. Proper butter, the kind your granny used. We are hemmed in on one side by the border, while being relentlessly pounded on the other by the Atlantic.
Paul Brady sang that 'your hearts are like your mountains in the Homes of Donegal', yet thousands of our families are watching their homes crumble due to the parasitic Mica in the very walls of their houses.
We are a stubborn, deeply individual and proud people, full of good-natured humour and sardonic wit. Everything you've ever heard about the place is true, yet, also not true.
And we always love a good contradiction… at least some of the time. In Donegal, things move slowly - perhaps this is due to the lack of decent public transport or access to a train?
But that argument is for another time. What's important to know for now is that this place is a rule unto itself, and like every good rule, there is an exception: The Donegal International Rally.
To be honest, I don't know if words can ever adequately describe the sheer madness that happens over the course of a June weekend.
Hundreds of thousands of people from across Ireland congregate in Letterkenny and are joined by those who make the annual pilgrimage from across Europe and as far away as America.
They come here to experience an event that F1 organisers could only dream of throwing - a competition that sees highly tuned, specialised cars take on some of the most challenging driving roads in Ireland. Each year, over €20 million is pumped into the local economy.
Letterkenny transforms into a wild festival, covered in a smoky haze, soundtracked by rumbling exhaust pipes and squealing tyres.
It is an annual phenomenon, and when I returned to Ireland during the first lockdown, I felt a deep impulse to write about home, about the dream freedom and escape, and the unbearable sense of feeling life had become stagnant.
The entirety of Revved takes place in one location, the stockroom of a petrol station, on the final morning of the Rally Weekend.
We meet Eamon as he attempts to get the shop into shape before his manager arrives. He has loved cars and the rally his whole life, it's in his blood.
But this year is different. Instead of attending it, he relives his memories of the last year he went, his Leaving Cert year, when his life changed forever.
Eamon uses everything he can to tell his story - or at least, the version of events he wants us to hear. He breathes life into bottles of Football Special, packets of Monster Munch and loaves of bread, creating puppets.
These puppets play the other characters that we meet along the way, which include the formidable Katie, the razor-sharp Derry girl who has her sights set on Trinity, his best friend Cathal, and a garda who looks suspiciously like Brendan Gleeson.
Revved explores what it means to be on the cusp on adulthood in modern Ireland, while tackling themes of belonging, truth and desire. Ultimately, it asks us whether we can, or should, forgive ourselves for the mistakes we made in our past.
It is a huge honour for me to be sharing this play again in Donegal as part of the Earagail Arts Festival, after our successful run in January in the An Grianán Theatre.
Following our Earagail dates, it will be performed in unique venues across Donegal in the old-school 'fit up tour' style, and I can confidently assert on behalf of the whole creative team about how excited we are to bring this wild production out on the road!
Patrick Quinn's Revved tours Donegal in July, as part of this year's Earagail Arts Festival programme, with dates on Saturday 9th July at Amharclann Ghaoth Dobhair, Gaoth Dobhair, Thursday 14th July at the Town Hall Theatre, Ramelton, and Thursday 21st July at Colgan Hall, Carndonagh - find out more here.
