CAPACITY AUDIENCES WERE in attendance for an Irish-language play that was being performed on the main stage of Dublin’s Smock Alley Theatre last week.

What is rare is wonderful, they say, but when you hear that Minimal Human Contact was written by Moglaí Bap of Kneecap, a play that tells the story of the musician’s struggle with gambling before becoming a member of the famous band, it’s easier to understand why some of the crowds were there.

The play is being produced by Aisling Ghéar, the Belfast theatre company founded by Moglaí Bap’s father, Gearóid Ó Cairealláin, and directed by Bríd Ó Gallchóir, Gearóid’s widow.

The title of this play, Minimal Human Contact, refers to the practice of casinos to ensure that customers keep spending their money until it is all gone. Tea, sandwiches and biscuits are available for free and, late at night, to ensure that people do not go home, Chinese food is provided.

This is a one-man show and John (Seán T. Ó Meallaigh) is the central character. Several conversations take place – a conversation between himself and the big security man at the door and with some of the other gamblers in the casino.

The life of the gambler is spent in the shadows. They are inside the casino with no view of the outside world and there is a reason for that. They lose all connection to the outside world while they are losing their money, or in the case of our hero, the money he stole from his mother’s drawer.

John is a thief, but he doesn’t pretend to be a nice person when he’s at the roulette machine. He’s full of nerves – he has certain numbers he always plays, because he’s studied algorithms, of course, and he loses £50 of the £300 he stole from his mother in one spin of the wheel.

He soon loses £150 – but then he wins. His heart lifts – but that boost only lasts for a moment because he only had a small fraction of the total bet on that number and so it is a much smaller win than he expects.

We all have ups and downs in life – but it’s downs that are dominant for our friend.

Seán T. Ó Meallaigh is originally from Connemara – but he inhabits this character from west Belfast completely, every detail is perfect, his accent, his gestures. The set designed by Mags Mulvey is similarly flawless and won the Irish Times Theatre Award in 2023 for  design and lighting.

We are outside a casino on Castle Street, the main street from the centre of Belfast to the west, a street full of the character of the city by the harbour. Castle Street is a non-conformist street and some would say it looks gloomy.

The most famous traditional music pubs are here or nearby – such as the Hercules, Kelly’s Cellar and Maddens – but there is also a dark side, as in every city. This is also where the casinos, discount stores, drug addicts and drunkards beg for a few bob.

This is a piece of sharp theatre, full of edginess – and the writer does not spare himself from the pointy end of his pen. At the end, he leaves us with advice. When it stops being fun, stop. The writer has dedicated the play to his mother, Aoife Ní Riain, who passed away a few years ago. Everything is personal.

This is a play full of truth that is sometimes bitter – but it has heart and this shows that Irish language drama is alive and well, even if it is barely surviving on a shoestring.

It is a great credit to the company, director Bríd Ó Gallchoir, actor Seán T. Ó Meallaigh and one would hope that they would receive the necessary support from funders to continue this pioneering work.

The Journal’s Gaeltacht initiative is supported by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme