Fiona Shaw takes in sights and sounds of ‘Waking’ East

Fiona Shaw reflects on the death of her father, the town of Cobh, and Ireland’s cultural output on a tour of the east, writes Ellie O’Byrne

The woman often heralded as the greatest theatre actress of her generation is sitting good- naturedly through a dramatic reconstruction of the sinking of the Titanic in The Titanic Experience museum in Cobh.

Fiona Shaw shudders at the horrible creaking noise as the great ship upends itself in a CGI reconstruction, listens to actors reconstruct first-hand accounts of the sinking, and, afterwards, checks the fate of the passenger whose ticket she’s been given, one Daisy Minihane, 33 years old (“I wish!” says Shaw), who was travelling first class.