Kanturk memories with a deaf dad and 11 siblings inspired Carmel Winters' new play
Louis Lovett in The Maestro and the Mosquita. Picture: Ros Kavanagh
Carmel Winters grew up in a large family in Kanturk, Co Cork, with 11 siblings, in an era when the notion of spending ‘quality time’ with parents was very much not a thing. Moments of connection with her father were few and far between — even more so given that there was an additional barrier to communication.
“My father was deaf, at a time when there was no kind of provision for that. He lived in a hearing world, and we just got on with our business with him not hearing at the centre of it. But as I got older, I wondered what it was like inside that deafness. I was so grateful to remember that the only times I was really in connection with him was when we were watching either Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy. Then I got to see what he loved and what he relished, and what really made him laugh.”
