They say you need your bad luck to strike during the dress rehearsal, at the latest. The dress rehearsal for Swan Lake went smoothly. On opening night, over 2,000 people mingled in the foyer and bars of the new Grand Canal Theatre, celeb-spotting or simply being celebs. The staff, who had been practicing their drills… read more +

Aged 16, I got my break in the theatre. Playing a broom carrier in the school production of Macbeth, I arrived for the performance to find myself promoted. A classmate had fallen ill. My new role was that of the Captain in the second scene: gravely wounded from battle, he reports to King Duncan how… read more +

For almost a century the Irish who died at Gallipoli were largely forgotten. In the week that their memory was officially honoured for the first time, with Mary McAleese’s visit to the Gallipoli war graves, a series of letters uncovered in the National Archives tells a vivid story of the sacrifice of two Dublin brothers… read more +

Eamon de Valera once said that if he wished to know what the people of Ireland were thinking, he had to simply look into his heart. Today, the politicians prefer to rely on polls to know what the people are thinking, while de Valera’s role as a moral grandstander has been largely usurped by my… read more +

Michael Harding was going to be a priest. It was the era of Vatican II, of liberation theology, or worker priests pursuing social justice. The church, he thought, was the place to be. He was already, by passion, a writer. Aged 14, he was given a manual typewriter by his uncle, and knew that was… read more +

The gleaming new Grand Canal Theatre in the Docklands may have a kitsch extravagance to it (notably in the outdoor lighting), but it does what it’s supposed to, and does it superbly: the sightlines are excellent, the auditorium a fine blend of tradition and technology, the towering proscenium arch beautifully set. After the indignities of… read more +

Olwen Fouéré is even more beautiful in person. Sitting in tracksuit and cardigan in a light-filled dance studio in Dublin, hurriedly eating a packed lunch, the French-Irish actress exudes a warmth and charisma that belies the often aloof, statuesque roles she plays on stage.

Danny Talbot, who died aged 19 last summer, of a suspected drug overdose, while in the HSE aftercare system, was born into circumstances of extraordinary deprivation. His mother, Linda Lamb, was intellectually disabled, and spent much of her life in and out of the care system. She drank heavily, regularly went missing, and had a… read more +

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.

Thomas Kilroy’s new play for the Abbey is an awkward work, marred by obviousness and by the tired, cumbersome conceit of relying on twentysomethings to play fifteen-year-olds. And yet it is also a foundation myth for 21st century Ireland, eschewing the minor notes of nuance in favour of the major chords of sweeping social drama…. read more +