The first week of the Dublin Theatre Festival of 1964 was largely a bleak affair. Reviews in the English papers were mostly negative, and Irish theatre faced “a scramble to survive”, warned the playwright Eugene McCabe.

A century ago, at the Abbey, a young writer mentioned women’s underwear in a new play, and the audience rioted. Fifty years ago, in the Dublin Theatre Festival, a young director staged a play that involved a condom being thrown on stage, and the director was arrested. Then, last year, in the Dublin Fringe Festival,… read more +

This is re-posted here to tie in with next week’s column, on the forthcoming production of Rough by Grace Dyas at the Axis Ballymun. Originally published in Village, 2007. On the evening of May 21, 1957, a Garda Inspector arrived at 18a Herbert Lane, an old coach house on a laneway off Baggot St in… read more +