'An incredible alchemy': Enda Walsh on reviving Disco Pigs, the play that launched Cillian Murphy

As he prepares to direct Disco Pigs for its 30th anniversary, Enda Walsh reflects on the play that launched the careers of so many Cork talents 

Disco Pigs writer Enda Walsh on a recent visit to Cork. Picture: Chani Anderson

Just to be clear, it was never going to happen. It was just a joke between old friends. A momentary flash of brain synapse that quickly faded out with a knowing chuckle. When playwright Enda Walsh told his old friend Cillian Murphy that he was going to revive Disco Pigs for its 30th anniversary, the Oscar-winning actor quipped: "We have to cast the kids!”

It would have been quite a headline-grabbing squaring of the circle. To have Murphy’s teenage son and Eileen Walsh’s similar-aged daughter stepping into the roles that provided their parents’ breakthrough back in 1996. Pig and Runt. The 17-year-olds on a mad night out in their hometown, babbling in a personal dialect that sounds like a combination of Corkspeak and the Nadsat slang of A Clockwork Orange.