Ex-IRA want to retain control of resources and proceeds of crime

The guns may be silent most days now, but monsters, dinosaurs, and ghosts are everywhere, writes Gerard Howlin

MONSTERS, Dinosaurs and Ghosts, the play by Jimmy McAleavey staged last June on the Peacock stage at the Abbey Theatre, is a dark comedy. Deeply funny, it is a scarifying insight into the disconnectedness, guilt and betrayal felt by two former IRA men. Nig and Wee Joe used to be comrades. Held together by pills and drink, they are rattled by the ghosts in the plays title. But if they are guilty of monstrous crimes, they are not monsters.

“They are not monsters, not psychopaths,” McAleavy said in an interview podcast by the Abbey Theatre. The playwright is “not so sure if they are dinosaurs or extinct” either.