Nine Weeks, the new show by Seán Kennedy is a deeply heartfelt exploration of the relationship between Seán and his mother during her final weeks of life. It’s also a rage against male oppression and a celebration of those who overcome.

Portrait by Marta Faye Photography.

I’m queer. My mother had a bit of an issue with that word. Her generation, I think, still struggle with it. I explained to her that ‘we’ had reclaimed it, that it was empowering. And further still, thought of it as a term of positive affirmation! To me it’s linked with creativity, oddness, left-of-centre principles, and fighting oppression. Some of my straight friends I call queer. Very few mind you. It’s reserved for extremely special cases. But there are some who get special dispensation. Anyway, my mother, who would have been 63 this year, had a very different association with this word. It reverberated with danger - a tool of hate chiefly used by cisgender straight men from her generation. And what a generation! Can you imagine being a young woman in early 1970’s Ireland?