Actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor has described the experience of making this weekend's Pádraig Pearse TV drama Trial of the Century as spooky and poignant.
The three-part TV3 series, which stars the Love/Hate actor in the lead role, airs on Saturday [9:15pm], Sunday [9.00pm] and Bank Holiday Monday [9:00pm].
It asks what may have happened if Commander-in-Chief of the rebel forces Pearse - a trained barrister - had faced a public trial instead of a court-martial for his role in the Easter Rising in 1916. Pearse was executed on May 3, 1916 in Kilmainham Gaol for his role in the Rising. His brother Willie was executed the following day.
Speaking to Marian Finucane on her RTÉ Radio 1 show on Saturday, Vaughan-Lawlor described the series as a "fictional history".
"So the first episode is the case for the prosecution and the second episode on Sunday is the case for the defence," he explained. "The third episode on Monday is a contemporary jury examining what they've seen, examining the evidence and wondering if he would've been found guilty or innocent in a public trial."
Vaughan-Lawlor described Pearse as an "incredibly complex individual" and an "incredibly eye-opening man to try to get close to".
"He was a fiercely private man in one way and maybe quite privately unknowable. So what was exciting for me was to try and get under [his skin] or investigate or explore the private man," he said.
"In the drama it very cleverly offsets the public and the private man. So you have his public scenes in the courtroom and they're offset against more private scenes with his counsel and then increasingly as the drama goes on, with Willie and his mother."
David Heap as Judge Bonham
Trial of the Century was filmed at the Green Street Courthouse in Dublin's Smithfield, where Republican Robert Emmet was tried for high treason in 1803. Vaughan-Lawlor said that the experience of filming in that location, and so close to the GPO, had left its mark on him.
"It was incredible and quite spooky," he recalled, "but also, being a stone's throw from where it all happened, was incredibly poignant."
Listen to the full interview here.
