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Belfast's Martin Lynch is bringing his new play on Irish emigration to the city this month.

The writer and director, famed for the likes of 'Dancing Shoes: The Story of George Best', has worked with Manchester-based Irish academic Dr Liam Harte to transform his research into a play.

'My English Tongue, My Irish Heart' is based on 'The Literature of Irish in Britain: Autobiography and Memoir, 1725-2001' - a critically acclaimed study by Dr Harte, Senior Lecturer in Irish and Modern Literature at the University of Manchester.

Last year Dr Harte secured a Follow-on Funding Award from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to collaborate with the Belfast playwright, Martin Lynch, to transform the research findings of his 2009 book into a lively theatrical show that dramatises what it has felt like to be Irish in Britain at different times and places.

The play is about to embark on a month-long tour of community arts venues in Ireland and the UK, kicking off in Belfast on May 1.

Speaking to Belfast Live, Mr Lynch said: "My view is every single family here has someone connected to them who has emigrated and come back, or maybe never come back. Even just a student leaving for four or five years is a big thing."

The play, which features five actors - two from Belfast and three from Dublin, tells the story of Irish emigration to England through the generations, exploring the perplexities of living with, and between, two worlds.

It centres on a young, educated couple - Gary, a Mayo Catholic, and Susan, a Tyrone Protestant.

They move to Manchester and their contemporary story of migration is criss-crossed by the stories of those who have gone before them, from lawyers and labourers to pickpockets, politicians and professional street preachers.

Mr Lynch said: "It is done in the round with the audience all around and the actors mingling with them. The big problem I had was the book covers 200 years of Irish people emigrating to England.

"I came up with the idea of having a modern couple who go through the emigration experience and what we do is take their story from meeting at uni, going to Manchester and the ups and downs. We then interweave the other stories from over the years."

Mr Lynch spoke of his own experience in England and said he loved writing the play. He added: "I loved it because when I was 18 I moved to Manchester for four months to work, I was not an emigrant, I went for the craic.

"I went to the shop and no one understood me, you do not know where your work is or how to get about. It is a brand new experience, it's like being a baby starting to crawl. That is the emigration experience no matter where in the world you go.

"I have watched Irish people everywhere, places like New York, watched how they perform and their look and communication."

Mr Lynch said the play is a brilliant night out.

"Also the central thing is the idea when people go away and live elsewhere they are leaving their roots, their identity, their language and cultural humour you grew up understanding. When you move from one country to another then that is opened up to question," he said.

"When the couple go and live abroad should they bring up their children Irish, their children are of that country. When our couple move to Manchester their young son wants to wear the Irish rugby shirt when he is four but by the time he is six he does not want to wear the Irish one he wants to wear the English one. Imagine what it does to the parents."

The play is produced by Green Shoot Productions, Mr Lynch’s not-for-profit theatre company, and the tour is jointly sponsored by the AHRC and the University of Manchester. Part of the box office proceeds of the tour will be donated to two emigrant welfare charities, the Aisling Return to Ireland Project in London and the Safe Home Programme in County Mayo.

Dr Harte said: “Although much has been written about the Irish emigrant experience, this is the first time a play of this kind has ever been staged anywhere in these islands. My English Tongue, My Irish Heart weaves together gripping historical accounts of what it felt like to be Irish in Britain with a very contemporary story of how emigration changes the lives of a modern-day couple.”

The play is at Roddy McCorley’s, Belfast, on Friday, May 1; The Spectrum Centre, Belfast, Saturday, May 2; and the Waterfront Studio, Belfast, from Tuesday, May 5, to Saturday, May 9.