Naomi Linehan, living history actor at Dalkey Castle describes her day
I STARTED AS a living- history actor at Dalkey Castle, in south Co Dublin, six months ago I went to see the show The Medieval Experience, was really excited by it and auditioned for a part.
We start at 10.30am, and it takes about an hour to get ready for the first performance. The shows feature professional actors playing the parts of real people who lived in Dalkey in medieval times.
The main characters are Master Cheevers, owner of the castle, Sive the housekeeper and cook, Barnaby the pot boy, Rupert the archer and Magnus Maxwell, a notorious travelling barber-surgeon. I play Sive.
We research every aspect of life in medieval times so we can respond to visitors in character. I find myself starting to think like people thought back then, to value what they valued and believe what they believed.
By the end of the performance the audience should feel that they have travelled back in time.
If a tourist produces a modern item, such as a camera, I stare in wonder at it, seeing it as an interesting piece of jewellery, perhaps, and will often try to barter a hog's head in exchange, or a slice of hedgehog pie.
The amazing thing is that visitors get caught up in the authenticity of the show and often answer my questions in archaic language similar to my own.
The thing that really excites visitors is the amount of history that is trapped in their own language.
I explain that in medieval times people ate off square wooden plates called trenchers, which is where "one good square meal a day" comes from.
A lot of terms, such as "to keep it under your hat", "a bolt out of the blue" and "to be the butt of a joke" come from archery.
We do a show every half-hour, so we can deal with smaller groups than is usual for a tourist attraction.
Sometimes visitors react to us as real people rather than as characters. Once Rupert the Archer talked about how Irish was not spoken in Dalkey, as it is within the Pale, and a patriotic visitor stormed out in protest and had to be cajoled to return.
I have learned loads working here, and I think it has made me a better actor, too. The biggest block for a performer is fear of the audience. When the audience is ranged around you, as it is here, you become fearless.
Not all actors can make the transition. The constant improvisation is too much pressure for them. They like the security of the unchanging script. That's the buzz of it for me.
We finish up at about 5.30pm, and I go home on a high, back to the Dart and the traffic and the noise. My only fear is that one day I'll forget to change out of my costume.
*In conversation with Sandra O'Connell
* Dalkey Castle Heritage Centre, Dalkey Co Dublin, 01-2858366, www.dalkey castle.com. The Medieval Christmas Experienceruns until December 23rd