The screen is now showing scenes from the film TROJAN EDDIE.  A middle aged man appears; it is RICHARD HARRIS, playing the character of John Power in Trojan Eddie.

            RH:     I’m croakin’ for some lush, Pecker.

            PD:     Who’s that?

RH:     You know me well, Pecker. Didn’t you teach me the cant in that godforsaken hole we spent several weeks in.

PD:     (recognising him) Well, holy God, it’s Richard Harris himself! The last time we met  – the only time we met – was on the set  of the fillum Trojan Eddie.

RH:     That’s the place I’m talking about –  that God forsaken hole. Twas worse than a real halting site

PD:     ‘Twas a real one (laughs) What are you doing here?

RH:     The same as yourself, man.

PD:     (nodding)  Passing through then. You’re dying for a drink?

RH:     That’s what I said. Croakin’ for a lush. (smiles) Your tuition wasn’t in vain. I still remember the whids-

PD:     Aye, the words. The parlay chanter.

RH:     Listen to this. The Seids – the guards. The tohbar –the road. A mush- a man. A raki- a girl.

PD:     Fair play to ya. You didn’t forget. Here  (he hands him a bottle of Guinness) That’s the Buskers Chanter I taught you, a type of parley spoken by travelling musicians and entertainers. There’s lots of different variations. Ah, it’s all died out now; no one uses it anymore. Mores the pity.

RH:     Well, I still remember it. Here’s to you, Pecker Dunne, parley poet and chanter. ( they drink) Did you ever watch the film after it was made.

PD:     I did. I even have a video of it. You and Stephen Rea. John Power and Trojan Eddie. And the girl…what was her name?

RH:     Kathleen.

PD:     Kathleen, yes. Beauty and the beast.

RH:     Steady now. I wasn’t that fucken ugly!

PD:     Sure you were too old for her any road

As they speak we see a scene at a travellers halt. Kathleen, a young girl appears. In her 20’s, she is very beautiful. Richard becomes John Power.

RH:     Kathleen! Come here till I show you something. This is where we used to stop. When we were on the road with me father. Right across here. Let the horses off and pitched our camp. With our little wagon on that hill right there. Fresh water, and –look – lashings of firewood for the fire. Meself and me sister Bridget, running through the woods. And those rocks there – see? – we were always climbing them.

K:        But you settled down, became part of the settled community.

RH:     But I was never a townie. (pause) Ah, I started rambling into the town, knocking around with a few local lads, old billiards halls and that. Then my sister Bridget met a settled boy – and ran off and got married. That sort of finished me on the road too. That summer when my father moved on I refused to go, and they went off without me. I never took to the road again.

K:        (coming close to him) But you married a traveller?

RH:     Aye. I married a traveller. Kitty. The Lord be good to her. You remind me a lot of her.

K:        Was she beautiful?

RH:     Yes. She was beautiful.

K:        They say you’re the wealthiest man in the county.

RH:     Ah, money! All the money in the world doesn’t buy you more than a shave at the end of the day.

K:        ‘Twould make me happy.  That, and a place to call home. (she looks around at the squalor) I don’t like the road meself. When I get married I’m wanting to live in a house. Bit of an orchard at the back and a swing for the children and all. (she looks at John) People think travellers don’t like beautiful things but we do. And they think we don’t like the cold as well, but that’s not true either. ( she links her arm in John’s) You’ll look after me, won’t you John?

Margaret  appears and sings SHE WALKED THROUGH THE FAIR (traditional)

MB:                My young love said to me “My mother won’t mind
And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind”
And she stepped away from me and this she did say,
“It will not be long, love, till our wedding day”

She stepped away from me, and she went thro’ the fair.
And fondly I watched her move here and move there.
And then she went homeward with one star awake,
As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

Last night she came to me, she came softly in,
So softly she came that her feet made no din.
And she laid her hand on me, and this she did say
“It will not be long love, till our wedding day”

PD:     She saw you coming a mile off, boy.

RH:     Sure I know that. But where would I get another chance of a fine woman like that in my lifetime? Me, a tinker gone bad. And nothing but a big empty house to go home to every night.

PD:     Aye, you’re right. More power to your elbow John.

RH:     It’s not my elbow that needs the power, boy!

PD:     Is that why she ran away with your nephew  Dermot on your wedding night?

RH:     You know how it is with young girls, their heads are easily turned.

PD:     And the suitcase of money she took with her?

The screen shows Trojan Eddie giving her the suitcase and Dermot in  the background, watching.               

RH:     ‘Twas her own. Her dowry.

PD:     Yerra, I know that. Was she worth it?

RH:     She came back, didn’t she?

PD:     How much was in the suitcase?

RH:     Eleven thousand.

PD:     Which she brought back, of course.

RH:     You know she didn’t. Her family, the McDonaghs, they had that away. Mind you, we broke a few heads. We got our money’s worth, by Christ, anyway

The screen now shows Eddie finding the suitcase under his friend’s bed.

PD:     And Trojan Eddie?

RH:     The Trojan eejit you mean! Sure I bankrolled him most of his life. Without me he’d have starved – him and his family. If he had brains he’d be dangerous.

As he speaks we see Trojan Eddie on screen, doing his spiel, selling his wares.

TE:     What you want I got. And if you can get it cheaper anywhere else then I want to know about it. Trojan Eddies the name, bargain-zinies the game. A walkman? I got it! A razor? I got it! A guitar? I got it! A keyboard? I had one last week. Too late. So listen, don’t be done out of it, get down here now. Trojan Eddie’s of William Street. Now. (a close up shot of him on the screen) What are yeh doin’ sitting there?  I said now! ( the film ends)

PD:     Seems to be doin’ alright for himself now, out on his own. A brand new store. And lashings of stock for sale. What did he have when he worked for you, John? An auld van and a stall be the side of the road. And sellin’ stuff you wouldn’t give to a charity shop. I wonder where he got the money to start up on his own…..?

RH:     What are yeh sayin’?

PD:     I’m  thinking the quare wan wasn’t the only one to see you comin’

RH:     It’s not my money, if that’s what you think.

PD:     Him and Dermot were very close though. Like brothers in fact. Maybe the McDonaghs were only the scapegoats in all this.

RH:     That bloody townie doesn’t know his elbow from his instep. Shure he won’t pay for any of that stuff. It’ll all fall down around his ears before long. You mark my words. Then he’ll be crawlin back to me looking for help. Cos he don’t stand a chance without me. He haven’t got a hope in hell. You see I know who I am, and what I am, and what I am worth. But him, he hasn’t got a clue, not an idea. He’ll come crawling back on his belly, boy. Just like the woman did.  You wait and see. Trojan Eddie!  Trojan fuckin’ eejit! ( by now he is shouting)

PD:     I suppose you are right, John. 

We see Kathleen in the background, calling to John

K:        John. Your tea is ready.

RH:     Right, Kathleen, I’ll be there in a minute.

PD:     She who must be obeyed

RH:     She’s pregnant you know. Our first child.  Isn’t it well for me boy?  ( he goes)

PD:     Fair play to yeh John. ( shakes his head as John disappears)

Margaret and Pecker watch as John walks away.

PD:     No fool like an ould fool.

MB:    He was an outsider, wasn’t he…Trojan Eddie, the townie?

PD:     They both were. Eddie and John. That’s what I liked about the film. It showed what it was like to be an outsider from both sides. Eddie , a townie , because he was working and making his living from John and the travelling community. And John, a traveller, who was living amongst the settled community,  and had made his fortune as a result. Both were despised in their different ways.  (a pause)                                                                                                           That’s where the music helps. Woody Guthrie was an outsider. He used his music to challenge things. I’m an outsider too. I use my music and my songs to challenge people in Ireland about the way Travellers are treated. I’ve also used it to celebrate the richness of Traveller music and Traveller culture. The first people to play the banjo were outsiders to America. They were the black slaves that were dragged halfway across the world from Africa to the cotton plantations of the American south.

Pecker and Margaret sings a verse of Woody Guthrie’s  LONESOME VALLEY (c) Woody Guthrie)

There’s a road that leads to glory
Through a valley far away,
Nobody else can walk it for you,
They can only point the way.

You gotta walk that lonesome valley,
You gotta walk it by yourself,
Nobody here can walk it for you,
You gotta walk it by yourself.

PD:     There’s a freedom, there is wildness, and there’s a sense of pain in Travellers style of music. When you’re downtrodden all your life it gets in your chest and it affects you. And it comes out in your music. I can hear that in Woody. Just as I can hear it in you. Did you feel an outsider Margaret?

MB:    All me life, boy. But I didn’t let that stop me. It was the singing I cared for. Only the singing. If I hadn’t had that, what would I have done? Maybe I might’a been a factory girl.

Margaret sings THE FACTORY GIRL (traditional)

As I went out walking one fine summer morning,
The birds in the bushes did whistle and sing
The lads and the lasses in couples were courtin’
Going back to the factory their work to begin

He spied one among them, she was fairer then many,
Her cheeks like the red rose that blooms in the spring,
Her hair like the lily that grows in yon’ valley
She was only a hard-working factory girl

He said soft beside her, more closely to view her
She said “My young man, don’t stare me so,
I gold in my pocket, and silver as well,
no more will I answer that factory call…”

Pecker appears with his banjo case. He opens the case, takes out his banjo and strums it for a moment.

PD:     The thing I love about the banjo is that it’s the instrument of the outsider. Me father wanted me to be a fiddle player, like himself. I think it broke his heart when I choose the banjo instead. I got my first one in Castlecomer Co Kilkenny when I was little more than a child. We had gone into a harness shop to get some gear for one of our horses and the man pulled out this dusty old banjo from somewhere and gave it to me. There are times in your life – moments when you feel something was planned for you by the man above. As soon as I held that banjo in my hands I knew we were going to spend our lives making special music together. (pause)  And so we did.

Pecker looks at his surroundings for a while then shakes his head.  He gathers his banjo and case etc and begins to move away.  The light gradually fades and we move to a centre spotlight.

Peckers  sings WEXFORD TOWN (c Pecker Dunne)

PD:                 My family lived in Wexford town, stopped travelling and settled down,
Though my father kept a horse and car, we lived within the town,
The people there misunderstood, or they did not know our ways,
So with horse and car, back on the road, I began my travelling days

My father was called the Fiddler Dunne, and I’m a fiddler too,
But although I often felt his fist, he taught me all he knew,
I know I’ll never be as good, and yet I feel no shame,
For the other things my father taught, I am proud to bear his name.

He taught me pride and how to live, though the road is hard and long,
And how a man will never starve, with a banjo, fiddle or song,
And how to fight for what I own, and what I know is right,
And how to camp beside a ditch on a stormy winter’s night.

O times were good and times were bad, and people cruel and kind,
But what I learned of people then, has stayed within my mind,
I’ll honour friends with all my heart, do for them all I can,
But I’ve learnt to go the road again, when they spurn the tinker man.

O Wexford is a town I like, but the travelling man they scorn,
And a man must feel affection for the town where he was born,
I know one day, that I’ll go back, when my travelling days are done,
And people will begin to wonder, what has happened to the Pecker Dunne.

The rest of the cast come out as Pecker finishes the last verse

                                                                                                End  (c) Tom O’Brien