Strumpet City

"Strumpet City" (1969) is a historical novel by James Plunkett set in Dublin, Ireland, at the time of the Dublin Lockout. In 1980, it was made into a successful TV drama by Radio Telefís Éireann, Ireland's national broadcaster.

The Novel

The novel is an epic, tracing the lives of a dozen characters as they are swept up in the tumultuous events that affected Dublin between 1907 and 1914. It was immensely popular when it was published, although a very conventional novel and sometimes laboured, the writing is direct and powerfully evokes the terrible poverty and the peculiar intimacy of pre-independence Dublin. One theme is the essential goodness of people and the tenderness which survives the brutality of deprivation. The popularity of the novel also owes something to events in Ireland in the early '70s, as the Troubles made the more traditional iconography of the insurrectionary period troublesome and economic success that fostered nostalgia for the mythical vanishing Dublin of tenements, working class heroes, and vagrant balladeers.

Television Dramatisation

Two years in the making, "Strumpet City" has been RTÉ's most ambitious and expensive production to date. The script was written by Hugh Leonard, and Peter O'Toole played Jim Larkin, the union leader. The cast also included Cyril Cusack as the alcoholic priest, Father Giffley, Donal McCann as the Larkin supporter, Mulhall, and David Kelly as the destitute "Rashers" Tierney. Frank Grimes won a Jacob's Award for his portrayal of the young Catholic curate, Father O'Connor.

First shown in Ireland in 1980, the series was exported to the United Kingdom, where it was shown on all regions of ITV bar Southern in late 1981, and on Southern's successor company TVS in 1982. It was then repeated by Scottish Television in 1983 and on Channel 4 and S4C in 1984 (ref. The Times Digital Archive).

In 2004 a digitised and remastered version was released on DVD.

External links

* [http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=982253&issue_id=9259 "Stumpet City" is discussed in an obituary for James Plunkett] in the Irish Independent; free registration required.
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0233110/ IMDb] entry for the RTÉ TV series.