Name Gerard Flynn Role Writer | Books James X, Nothing to Say | |
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Education St Joseph's Industrial School, Letterfrack Movies Trouble with Sex, Excalibur, Cal, Visions of Europe, Eliot & Me Similar People Peter Greenaway, Alain Tanner, Bela Tarr, Christoffer Boe, Damjan Kozole | ||
John Stephenson and Cllr. Gerard Mannix Flynn, Easter Monday 2017.
Gerard Mannix Flynn, sometimes written only as Mannix Flynn, is an Irish politician. He was born in Dublin in May 1957. Aside from his work on the Dublin City Council he is also a well known author and playwright, having written the novel Nothing To Say in 1983 and the play James X in 2002.
Contents
- John Stephenson and Cllr Gerard Mannix Flynn Easter Monday 2017
- Early life
- Artist
- Politician
- Board Memberships
- Work with SNAP
- References
Early life
He was sent to St Joseph's Industrial School in Letterfrack aged eleven for eighteen months. He was subjected to sexual and physical abuse there. He also spent time in Marlborough House Detention Centre, Daingean, Co Offaly, St Patrick's Institution and was given 5 years at 15 years of age and sent to Mountjoy Prison. He has always claimed his innocence despite being convicted as guilty.
Artist
His novels are published in German, Italian, Polish, and are currently being translated into Chinese. He founded his arts company, Farcry Productions, in 2004 which produces visual art, performance and installation work around taboo issues such as child sexual abuse, violence, and addiction.
In 2002 his semi-autobiographical play James X about a man suing the government and coming to terms with abuse he suffered in Irish state institutions was produced in the Temple Bar Music Centre. It won a fringe first award and later went on to win the Irish Times Theatre Awards - Best New Play category. In 2011 James X premiered in New York under the direction of Gabriel Byrne at the Culture Project.
In 2004, James X performed by Flynn won the Irish Times Theatre Award. An earlier version of this play titled ' Talking to the Wall' had previously won the Edinburgh Fringe award.
He appeared in the films Cal and When the Sky Falls, Excalibur and worked as an actor in Scotland, London, Austria, and Dublin for 20 years.
Politician
Flynn was first elected to Dublin City Council in the June 2009 local elections as an Independent candidate representing the South-East Inner City electoral area. He was re-elected to the revised Pembroke-South Dock electoral area in May 2014.
He tabled a motion to move the Temple Bar Cultural Trust [State company set up in 1991 as a regeneration agency for Temple Bar] under the direct control of Dublin City Council. The trust was subsequently found to be in breach of corporate governance and accountability in a number of public reports.
He has expressed critical views of the way public money was spent as part of a Grafton Street regeneration project in Dublin.
He is active in protecting Dublin streets and parks from commercialisation and the irresponsible placement of hoardings and other street furniture.
He supports tougher regulation around the amplification of busking on public streets, which led to his office being vandalised in February 2015.
In 2015 he resigned from the Dublin City Council Arts SPC over what he perceived as a lack of cohesive overall policy, strategy, and vision.
Unsuccessful in the 2011 General Election in the Dublin South-East constituency, he contests the 2016 General Election to Dáil Éireann in the recently formed Dublin Bay South constituency.
Board Memberships
Mannix sits on the Board of:
Work with SNAP
The first world conference on child sexual abuse was held in Dublin in April 2013. It was organized by Flynn and the SNAP Network.
SNAP is a self-help group that supports people who have been assaulted by clergy, and helps them try to pick up the pieces of their lives, heal and move forward.
The 2015 film, Spotlight, deals with survivors from the SNAP organisation in the United States.
Flynn criticised the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse report for not investigating the role of the state and pointed out that none of the testimony to the Commission can be used for prosecutions.