In a Little World of Our Own

The play centres round the relationships between three brothers in the Rathcoole area of Belfast. One brother, Ray, is a loyalist ‘hard man’, the second brother , Gordon, is about to marry to a god fearing Christian woman while the third brother, Richard, is mildly mentally handicapped.

When the daughter of a loyalist politician is attacked, suspicion is directed to her catholic boyfriend, but her friendship with Richard brings the events directly into the brothers’ lives.

​

RAY. Right, listen to this, both of you. And listen

carefully.

WALTER. Whatever you say.

DEBORAH. Has something happened to the wee girl, Ray?

RAY. Just listen to me Deborah. OK?

DEBORAH. OK.

RAY. This, wee girl, has been torturing our Richard for
years. One minute she’s his best friend and the next minute, she’s not. Anyway,
tonight she decided she’s not. And she left the party with this taig fella,
alright?

DEBORAH. What happened?

RAY. Well, I was supposed to meet Richard at eleven, but he
didn’t tum up. And nobody knew where he was or where he had gone. But everybody
knew where Susan and the scumbag had gone. Up the Cave Hill. So I put two and
two together and headed off after them and sure enough our Richard had followed
them.

WALTER. Her Da will go mad when he finds this out.

RAY. I don’t think so.

DEBORAH. Why?

RAY. Well, when I got there, this guy was acting the hard
man with our Richard. So I lost my temper a bit and slapped him a few times and
your woman she got all funny about talking shit and trying to get me to leave
him alone and all. So, I stopped hitting him to take our Richard home, but
Richard wanted to make sure she was all right, so he made me go back for her.
And that was when I found her.

WALTER. What do you mean found her?

​

Included in
Tearing the Loom and In a Little World of Our Own
Publisher: Nick Hern Books (1998)
ISBN-10: 1854594036, ISBN-13: 978-1854594037