Cillian Murphy, Disco Pigs and Cork in the 1990s: Unseen video, audio & pictures
Eileen Walsh and Cillian Murphy in rehearsals for an early production of Disco Pigs. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive
There was a scene in 1996 play Disco Pigs where Cillian Murphy’s character gets ranty and emotional about the glories of his home city. “Dinny Irwin… Roy Keane… Champion da Wonder Horse,” the 20-year-old actor gushed as Pig, his first proper role.
The latter name is a reference to athlete Sonia O’Sullivan, and in that snippet of script, Dublin writer Enda Walsh managed to nail a trait of his adopted hometown. Leesiders had long suspected their city was special. The achievements of their homegrown heroes made them think the rest of the world was at last realising it too.
When Murphy was entering his teens in the late 1980s, the outside narrative around Cork would have been one of factory closures, unemployment, and emigration. But scratch the surface and plenty people were enjoying life in the southern city. If you weren’t still living with your mam and dad, and had decided against taking the Slattery’s bus to London, then flats were available and affordable. All the more-so if you could get Rent Allowance from the state.
Loads of people seemed to be in bands, and there were plenty pubs and other venues where they could play. Living in a down-at-heel, low-cost city actually had its advantages.
Then in June 1990, along came Jack's Army's exploits at the World Cup in Italy to remind everybody what joy felt like. By autumn, Cork had a double hurling and football All-Ireland win. As the new decade progressed, the extra pep in the nation’s step turned into a bit of a swagger for some of the 140,000 inhabitants on Leeside. Keane and Irwin playing with the most exciting team in the Premier League; Sonia on her way to becoming world champion.
In another sphere, Sir Henrys was at the heart of so much of the city’s thriving youth culture. The South Main Street venue even hosted Nirvana’s first ever European rendition of the aptly-titled ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. It was also the home of Sweat, one of the best house-music clubs in Europe. Local bands like Sultans of Ping and the Frank & Walters also cut their teeth there before making an impact internationally.
And so the Gods Of Creativity must have been smiling knowingly as they nudged a Ballintemple teenager up the stairs of that black-walled venue in December 1995. Inside, he’d witness an innovative performance of A Clockwork Orange by local theatre company Corcadorca. People on stilts, pounding music, an audience ushered around to scenes in various parts of the club.
“Not only was it amazing, all the things you’d want from theatre, but I also thought it was so much fun,” Cillian Murphy told this newspaper. “I knew it was something I wanted to do.”
Fast-forward nine months to September 1996 and the gods were grinning again. Murphy had wangled a role in a Corcadorca two-hander written by Enda Walsh, and was taking to the stage in Triskel Arts Centre with Eileen Walsh, under the direction of Pat Kiernan.
For those of us in the audience in that 100-capacity venue, Disco Pigs felt special from the start. It began at midnight, the time we’d normally have been entering a club rather than a theatre. (Well, it did have an exciting dance-music soundtrack.)
And then the characters Pig and Runt – onstage with just two chairs – began speaking in a strange hybrid of Corkonian slang and baby-talk. And acted out mad adventures in places barely a bottle-throw from the Triskel.
By the end of the 60-minute experience, we realised this wasn’t theatre like we’d ever experienced before. No Danish kings, or tragic Dubs, or well-meaning bogmen. Corcadorca were plugged into the same place as we were. Pork Sity, as Walsh termed it in his script.
Of course, Disco Pigs was so well-written and performed that it soon burst out beyond its birthplace. Word spread, invitations arrived, and cast and crew had a ball as they packed up those two trusty chairs and toured far and wide.
By the time they were sweeping up awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival the following summer, all four young principals – Murphy, Kiernan and the two Walshs (not related) – were being hailed as the brightest of the bright emerging in their respective fields.
Incidentally, they weren’t the only Cork people making an impact at the renowned Scottish festival in 1997. Judy Hegarty and Conor Lovett’s Gare St Lazare Players were being lauded for their production of Molloy, while an emerging comedian from the west of the county was offering “camp ramblings and thinly-disguised smut” at the Assembly Rooms. Graham Norton, of course.
Inevitably, the Disco Pigs party eventually came to an end. Kiernan continued to build Corcadorca as one of the most innovative theatre companies in the country until the curtain fell in 2022. Enda Walsh hit the heights internationally, including a collaboration with David Bowie on musical play Lazarus. Eileen Walsh has starred in numerous stage and screen productions on both sides of the Irish Sea, and will square the artistic circle with Murphy again in the forthcoming film, Small Things Like These.
And the lad who played Pig? Aged 47 now, and possibly about to clinch an Oscar that’ll establish his reputation as one of the greatest actors of his generation. And, more importantly, it'll add him to that particular pantheon in his hometown. Dinny Irwin, Roy Keane, Champion da Wonder Horse… and Cillian Murphy.
