Me and Owen

Initially I read the character of Owen as someone who cared a great deal about his heritage, despite the diminishing cultural awareness of all these places and place names. I thought this was evident through the lines

'Back to the romance again. All right! Fine! Fine! Look where we’ve got to. (He drops on his hands and knees and stabs a finger at the map.) We’ve come to this crossroads. Come here and look at it, man! Look at it!' 

I believed him to be in a state of despair, sarcastically trying to deal with a difficult job of deciding what bits of his culture to disregard.

'And ever since that crossroads is known as Tobair Vree – even though that well has long since dried up. I know the story because my grandfather told it to me. But ask Doalty – or Maire – or Bridget – even my father – even Manus – why it’s called Tobair Vree; and do you think they’ll know? I know they don’t know. So the question I put to you, lieutenant, is this: what do we do with a name like that? Do we scrap Tobair Vree altogether...' 

Until recently I thought this was him losing his calm and having an emotional outburst about how sad the state of affairs are. 
When in actual fact he really doesn't care about his heritage and about these names. 
This is going to drastically change the way I have been rehearsing this monologue. 

With the play being set in Ireland in the 1800's, 1830's to be precise, I am going to have to learn to do an effective Irish accent. I have been using a video tutorial to work on this. 

What led up to the monologue

Owen is a businessman based in Dublin. Originally coming from the village of Donegal he is employed by the English Army to translate between them and the locals as well as translate place names for the map the soldiers are working on. He has found memories of Donegal but looks down on its peoples reluctance to move forward with the times. He understands what needs to be done and is quite good at it but whilst working with Yolande becomes enraged with his over romantacising with everything Irish. It is at this point in the play at which the monologue takes place. 

Any further details on the process I took is written on my script.