Any old name dear (To the SECOND COOK:)

What was his name?

SECOND COOK. Right. Er – any old name.

Arthur?

Arthur?

If the fate of the Mother’s small Celtic group stands in part for the fate of the Celts in Europe, faced by Romans and Germans, in Part Two, the continuing integrity of the Celts is made prominent. Chichester tells an army colleague that ‘It’s Celts we’re fighting in Ireland. We won’t get anywhere ’til we know what that means … If King Arthur walked out of those trees, now – know what he’d look like to us? One more fucking mick’. Fifth-century Britain and twentieth-century Ireland are pulled together in Chichester’s convictions. The bridge between the two is via one of the most subtle moments in the play. Chichester comes face to face with the man he knows as Sheamus Naill O’Rourke. He bears a celebrated name in Irish history. From the fifth century onwards, the ruling dynasty of northern and central Ireland was the Uì Neìll. An Englishman and an Irishman meet on ground once owned by the Uì Neìll, and which is now disputed land. And as the Mother sought to defend her farms, and as the old heathen, Cai, stays stubbornly on his fields, so O’Rourke claims his territory. The deadliness of the animal of which Marban spoke now assumes the form of O’Rourke. The Irishwoman with him expresses a cold, unyielding anger; a total rejection of Chichester’s romantic dreams:

Ireland’s troubles are not a tragedy. They are the crimes his country has done mine. That he does to me, by standing there.

As Chichester realises his imminent death, he reverts to his training. His colleague, Maitland, in scene one dismisses all Celts as ‘murdering bastards’. Chichester uses the same phrase as he is shot.

What is stated at this moment is not simply the meeting of Celt and Englishman, and not the vague association of the fifth century with the twentieth. It is the story of the history in between, of existing and viable cultures under pressure. It leads, by a process of coherently argued, as well as felt, ideas, to Brenton’s absolute conviction that:

What my play says is that all empire is bad. The Republican cause is just. The border is a crime. But bald statements are no good. To convince an audience of the truth of my arguments, I find myself writing about Britain in 54BC and a British officer going off his head in an Irish cornfield today. (Sunday Times, 12 October 1980)

The Play’s Evolution

By the summer of 1979, The Romans in Britain was ‘taking yards of stomach wall away but going well. I catch myself grinning at being the father and mother of such a big play’, Brenton wrote to Peter Hall. He was determined to have the piece performed in the Olivier, the largest of the National’s auditoria:

Play after play…raises the Irish war as our last imperial war, but not on this scale … The play’s wildness … the frieze or pageant-like nature of its scenes … cry out for the Olivier. (Rosenthal: 322)