Queen’s County draws inspiration from the fist trialled plantations operated by the English crown in Ireland in the 16th century in counties Laois and Offaly. The one in Laois became known as Queen’s County. This devised play explores displacement and alienation through the lens of young people’s experience today, and includes episodes on commuting, rural isolation, strangeness and belonging, in one character’s surreal train journey through County Laois en route home from Electric Picnic.
The performance is devised by Kildare Youth Theatre’s Senior Ensemble working in collaboration with theatre-maker Peter Hussey. It has been funded by the Arts Council’s Young Ensembles’ Scheme, and forms part of a sequence of new work called The Act of Oblivion that explores the colonisation of Ireland.