Eric Anderson's Reviews > The Colony

On a small, sparsely-populated and remote Irish island there is an ageing population that still speaks their native Irish language, but they are steadily dying out. One of the remaining youngest island residents is James who prefers to speak English and be addressed by his English name rather than his Irish name Seamus. Two foreigners separately travel to this island for their own purposes. There is irascible London artist Lloyd who wants to create paintings that capture the island's beauty and its inhabitants. He hopes to produce great works that will establish him as the “Gauguin of the North”. There's also Frenchman Jean-Pierre, a linguist who has been making excursions to the island for many years to record how the “purity” of this spoken language is slowly changing with the increasing influence of English. He wants to write an account of whether true Irishness can be preserved and Lloyd's presence is mucking up his plans. The two bicker and clash over their right to be on this island. The actual residents of the island grudgingly tolerate both of them as they are paying guests who bring in much needed capital as the native fishing industry has also been dying out – quite literally as both James' father and grandfather died at sea.

This is a slow burning drama that builds to say something much bigger about notions of national purity and colonialism. Read my full review of The Colony by Audrey Magee at LonesomeReader