Charlie McGuinness is a writer, actor and director from Carrigallen, County Leitrim - his new radio play, Fragile Maoilíosa will be broadcast on Drama on One on RTÉ Radio 1 this Sunday, 9th February - listen to it above.
Charlie was also joint winner of the RTÉ PJ O'Connor Radio Drama Award for 2024 with his radio play Clarity at Last, which will be broadcast by Drama on One later in 2025.
Charlie introduces Fragile Maoilíosa below...
You can try to dress it up all you want, but writing is a selfish and ruthless activity.
A writer will take anything and everything at their disposal to try and create an engaging story. Fact. This mainly comes from some unexplained want within the writer to think it is a good idea to try and create a story. It may not make them a bad person, but this is just a warning for you so as to take as little or as much attention as you wish to what I am about to write!
'There are moments in our lives that stay with us forever’. Is a blurb I have for this play - but then that sounds a bit vague, so I will try to explain! I think the play is about those moments in our lives that come out of nowhere and alter you for the rest of your days, for better or worse or both, and also whether you like it or not.
There are moments in our lives that stay with us forever...
The two characters in this play, like most of us in life, are trying to figure something out. The drama comes from the place that they are both trying to figure out the same question: one, why did my friend die? And the other, why did my son die? Over the course of the play we see the two characters battling with themselves and each other to find an answer.
But then all these thoughts and observations of what I think the play is about or what I think you may want to hear about the play don’t really matter. The listener will and should make their own choices as to what the play is about.
There is always a chance that I may have a complete blind spot to what the play is about that the listener may figure out for me!
Which is possibly why I prefer to stick to my original blurb, ‘There are moments in our lives that stay with us forever'.
Fragile Maoilíosa by Charlie McGuinness, featuring Eamonn Hunt and Muiris Crowley and directed by Gorretti Slavin will be broadcast on RTE Radio 1, Drama on One at 8.02 pm on Sunday, 9th February 2025 - listen to more from Drama On One here.
