The Marillac Theatre Company was created by Fedelma McVeigh to showcase the talented young women of the drama department of St.Lousie’s Comprehensive College, Falls Road, West Belfast. These young women had grown up in the epi-centre of the Troubles and Peter Cox (writer) and Robert Rae (director) were commissioned to tell their story
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“it mingles poetry and the colloquial and uses metaphor to highlight the many changes of emotion and meaning from pathos to humour, from pettiness to generosity and illuminating the ordinary dreams of ordinary women caught in extraordinary events. This is triumph indeed for any company; it is also a triumph for director Robert Rae. There was in the production a fusion of the visual, the verbal and music mirrored by elasticity of speech and movement.” Ray Rosenfield, The Irish Times
“It (Ma Hat Ma Coat and The Gandhi Girls) told us exactly what it was like to grow up in the Troubles. It was such a powerful statement that, at the end, there was no immediate applause – just a tremendously long silent pause while we thought about what we had just witnessed. Theatre is absolutely central because it has to do with the soul. It can help us confront something we haven’t been able to face.” Dame Judi Dench, the Theatre
The play was the subject of the BBC Documentary “Daughters Of The Falls”