POOR MONS O'SHEA

Monsignor O'Shea, director of Fremantle's Stella Maris Seafarer's Centre and founder of the Holy Trinty Church on Rottnest, died in 2012. His memory lives on amongst the faithful but now it's being shared amongst the somewhat less than faithful as the name of a new Irish pub in Fremantle.

His family are outraged. In the initial publicity for the Mons O'Shea in South Terrace, he's described as a jolly beer drinking priest when in fact he was teetotal and his family feel that his legacy is ridiculed through being connetct with the bar. We decided to call into the Mons to check it out and I feel that Mons would have been more upset by our experience there than by the naming per se.

I spotted an article about a play The Local written by a local and set in pub that was going to be performed in the Mons O'Shea so bought some tickets. It's a slightly odd bar as there's a shop in the front including a fridge containing (presumably) Irish bacon and other foodstuffs. They did have some souvenirs feating Mons but they have been removed temporarily after the fuss about the name. We settled into our wooden chairs in a tiny performance space and were entertained for 15 minutes or so by a middle-aged Irish guitarist/singer. Pleasant enough. And then the trouble started.

I'm the last person who should go to amateur theatre. All I do is see the faults. And sadly this production had lots of them - diabolical on all fronts. Even prayers from Mons during the rehearsal period wouldn't have helped. I don’t think I’ve seen anything so bad for a very long time. A script full of cliches and banalities and utterly amateur actors who talked over each other, or forgot lines, or (and this was the worst sin) signalled with their faces their response to words that hadn’t even been spoken. I would have happily left at interval but Susan thought we needed to stay as we were sitting in the front row. It didn’t get any better. The story had an abusive drunk bore at the centre and we heard about how he treated his customers, his boss, his wife, past girlfriends, even people in queues. So it wasn’t surprising that his wife left him, and that his new attempts to find compliant women failed as well. And did we care? Not a jot.

What were they (playright, director, actors) thinking?

Perhaps the problem is that I've seen another play set in an Irish pub: Conor McPherson's The Weir. And that was brilliant. Apparently the UK critic Michael Billington put it in his list of the top 101 plays ever: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/jul/14/conor-mcpherson-the-weir-relatable-modern-classic-brendan-gleeson-ardal-o-hanlon 

Poor Mons O'Shea. People will walk away from The Local thinking all Irish are drunks and 'eejits'. However, we may chance our luck in the future by checking out some more live music. And of course, there are all those other wonderful historic Fremantle pubs to try out...



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