In 1972, the play Jody won honors at the NL Provincial Drama Festival. It was then rewritten and renamed The Starrigan for the Newfoundland Travelling Company who took it on tour. It was also written as a drama for television.
In 1963 the Newfoundland provincial government introduced a policy of “Centralization”. Various inducements were offered fishermen in thousands of isolated settlements along the rugged coastline to move to selected “growth centres” in search of industrial employment. In five years, twenty-six thousand people were relocated, leaving four hundred and twenty communities abandoned. The plan was declared unfeasible, and officially cancelled in 1975.
The government re-settlement program offers the people of Oderin $3,000.00 per family to move to a growth center, on condition they all agree to go. Fisherman Phonse Delaney refuses, paralyzing the preparation, and earns the enmity of his neighbors, and the unfortunate death of his favorite grandson.
Keywords: Newfoundland re-settlement, centralization, unfortunate death, paralyzing, family, communities, abandoned, fishermen, dying, isolation
Genre: Drama