Performing Arts

The tradition and rich legacy as well as the current practice of theatre and performing arts in Ireland is documented through one of the world’s largest collections of drama, theatre, and performance archives. Within the Hardiman Library is a broad archive of theatre and performance in both Irish and English language on the island of Ireland, as well as records of Irish theatre performed internationally. This comprises a multi-format collection, from manuscript to print to digitised performance records to oral history of contemporary Irish theatre artists.  

Theatre and performance in Galway and the west of Ireland collects the history of theatre in the region. A playbill from Kirwan’s Lane Theatre in the city in 1783 lists Theobald Wolfetone, United Irishmen, acted on the historic city stage in a double bill of plays, Douglas and All the World’s a Stage.  

Galway is home to Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe, Ireland’s national Irish language theatre. Founded in 1928, the theatre developed and showcased the leading work for the stage in the Irish language. The theatre staged and premiered new plays in Irish as well as translations of classic Irish and international plays. 

Our University’s archive documents the rich tradition of teaching and producing theatre on campus by our students and staff since the early 20th century. Student and early university annuals and publications include cast photographs and reports from the student drama society. Through the 20th century this tradition continued between classroom and stage. In Summer 1975, a group of recent graduates including Garry Hynes and Marie Mullan, along with Mick Lally and others, formed a new theatre group, Druid Theatre, who would grow over subsequent decades to become Ireland’s leading theatre company and recognised around the world.  

Druid are synonymous with staging new and daring interpretations of works that define the canon of Irish theatre, as well as nurturing and premiering new Irish plays in Galway that then tour nationally and internationally, from village halls to major world venues. Hynes became the first woman to win the Tony-Award for Best Director, and with the company have set levels of excellence in production of well-known Irish and international playwrights, including J.M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Geraldine Aron, William Shakespeare, Sean O’Casey, Tom Murphy, Sonya Kelly, among many others. The Druid archive contains scripts, photos, posters, digitised show recordings and oral histories with company members, documenting the company, from Galway to Broadway.  

Thomas Kilroy was one of Ireland’s leading playwrights and critic. Born in Callan in Co. Kilkenny, Kilroy was long associated with the abbey Theatre, Dublin, from his first performed play, The O’Neill, produced on the Peacock stage in 1968. The author of over 20 plays for stage and radio, as well as the author of the Booker Prize-nominated novel, The Big Chapel, the Kilroy archive includes draft play manuscripts, research files, as well as extensive correspondence files to others including his close friend, fellow playwright, Brian Friel.  

The Abbey Theatre Digital Archive comprises the largest digital archive of a single theatre in the world. At over one million items, the Abbey digital archive allows clickable access to show recordings, stage designs, audio, scripts, programmes, posters, administration files and more from over 120 years of the Abbey’s history. The Irish national theatre, the Abbey was the first state-subsidised theatre in the English-speaking world.  

Plays made and performed by women theatre makers comprise an important facet of the theatre collections. Siobhán McKenna, born in Belfast, was a student of this University and was part of the Student Drama Society. She began her theatre career acting in Irish at An Taibhdhearc in Galway. Later, McKenna performed to audiences at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and Gate Theatre, and in New York with roles on- and off-Broadway, including an experimental production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1957. A committed activist, McKenna was part of many protests and marches in Northern Ireland and for causes including the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement.  

Carolyn Swift was co-founder of Dublin’s Pike Theatre in 1953. Playwright, producer and editor, she worked directly with Brendan Behan and Samuel Beckett at the Pike in the 1950s. In following years, she worked as producer, writer and editor in RTÉ, on programmes which included Harbour Hotel, Tolka Row and Wanderley Wagon. Swift also published numerous books for children and was dance critic for The Irish Times for over twenty years.  

Mary O’Malley founded the Lyric Players Theatre, an amateur group at her home in Belfast in 1951, along with her husband, Pearse O’Malley, before developing into a professional theatre at a bespoke new building in 1968. O’Malley was a skilled director, in particular of the plays of W.B. Yeats, and was also the founding editor of Threshold literary journal in 1957.  

Lelia Doolan is a theatre and film-maker and director and has worked in theatre and television production since the 1950s. She completed a PhD in Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast during the 1970s and served at Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre in 1971 - 1973. She was both a member and Chair of the Irish Film Board during the 1980s and 1990s and was a founder of the Galway Film Fleadh and Pálás Cinema. 

Genevieve Lyons was a co-founder of the Dublin Globe Theatre Company in 1954. An actress, she starred in numerous Globe Theatre productions at their base in Dun Laoghaire. In 1956 she starred as ‘Sally Bowles’ in the play, I Am a Camera, a work that would later be adapted to become the Broadway and film hit, Cabaret. 

Contemporary Irish theatre and its development through the 1990s is seen in a range of archive collections. Pan Pan Theatre Company was founded in Dublin by Gavin Quinn and Aedin Cosgrove in 1993. Initially known as Ireland’s first deaf ensemble, the company produced work for and by deaf artists, Pan Pan continued to evolve and become one of Ireland’s most recognised experimental and avant-garde theatre companies. The company have become synonymous with the works of William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett as well as European and classic international theatre and for pushing boundaries of theatrical form and technology.  

The Corn Exchange Theatre Company specialise in producing work in the Commedia d’ell’Arte, a highly stylized form of theatrical expression. Founded by director Annie Ryan and playwright Michael West in 1995, the company brought an entirely unique form of embodied performance, re-interpreting Irish classics as well as a contemporary international repertoire. The archive includes draft scripts and adaptations by Michael West as well as director’s notebooks by Annie Ryan.