Deirdre Kinahan – författare

When Mr Kane and Kathleen meet eating lunch on a park bench, they end up sharing more than just their sandwiches; together, they learn to accept the blessings and face the challenges of love.

A trilogy of landmark plays commemorating seven years of warfare in Ireland, from the 1916 Easter Rising to the Civil War which began in 1922.Wild Sky is a story of interlocking lives: of the politicised Josie Dunne, and of Tom Farrell, who is driven only by his love for her. As the Rising plays out, there are unforeseen consequences for everyone involved...Embargo focuses on a pivotal moment during the Irish War of Independence in 1920, when dockers and railmen refused to transport armed troops or handle any weapons arriving from Britain.Outrage follows two sisters, Alice and Nell, who play key roles in organising civic resistance and the propaganda war. Like everyone else in Ireland, they become deeply conflicted as the country spins toward a devastating Civil War.Each of the three plays was first performed a century after the event which it depicts, and they were commissioned and performed by companies including Fishamble: The New Play Company, Meath County Council Arts Office, Dublin Port Company and Iarnród Éireann.Together, they challenge the historical narrative, mixing true-life testimonies with powerful drama to create a theatrical hurricane of empathy, action and truth.

'To take a man's home is a terrible thing.'A young man trembles in his sleep amidst the ruins of a dilapidated barn on the outskirts of a small town in Limerick. When he awakes, he sees the ghost of a woman, comforting him with an old German melody…Compassionate and lyrical, Refuge explores the complex hidden history of the German-speaking settlers who were invited to make a home in rural Ireland in the eighteenth century to increase the Protestant population, and draws parallels with the experience of contemporary persecuted minorities.Deirdre Kinahan's play was first performed in 2026, directed by Jim Culleton and produced by Fishamble: The New Play Company, and Staatstheater Mainz, Germany, where it premiered before touring Ireland, including a run at Dublin Theatre Festival.

'I'm a different man now and it's a different life.''Yeah? Well, not for me it isn't.'An explosive drama about how one terrible moment can change lives irrevocably.On a seemingly ordinary evening an Irish family sit down to tea. The difference tonight is that Nial is home – back from prison having committed a dark crime many years earlier with some news to share and a conscience to clear.Fast, witty and frighteningly real, Moment takes you on journey through trauma wrapped up in tablecloths and teacake.Deirdre Kinahan's play was first performed at the Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, Ireland, in November 2009. The production transferred to the Bush Theatre, London, in February 2011.

An uplifting, bittersweet drama set in a nursing home, celebrating friendship and the human spirit.A nursing-home conservatory. Sean sits alone, abandoned to his memories. In storms Patricia, a feisty woman with a zest for life and for handsome men in wheelchairs. A wary intimacy develops between the two, an unforeseen relationship, by turns charming and combative, tender and funny.Infused with wry humour and humanity, Deirdre Kinahan's play Halcyon Days is a celebration of our quest for meaning in even the most seemingly hopeless of circumstances.It was first performed in preview at the Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, Ireland, in October 2012. The production received its Irish premiere at Smock Alley Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival, also in October 2012.The production was revived under a new title, These Halcyon Days, at Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, in August 2013 as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it won a Fringe First Award.Halcyon Days was developed and expanded from Kinahan's earlier short play, Salad Day, which received a reading at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 2009.

Green Shield Stamps, a million of them, and Ger Lawless has won them all. It’s Ballymun, it’s 1974, and she has fifteen friends round for a stamp-sticking party.Over one fateful night, fifteen determined women bring you into their lives in this funny and furious new version of Michel Tremblay’s fêted Québécoise comedy, Les Belles-Soeurs.Deirdre Kinahan’s The Unmanageable Sisters premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in March 2018.Deirdre Kinahan’s other plays include Wild Sky, Spinning, Halcyon Days, BOGBOY and Moment.

Will truth out?Set over one evening, Rathmines Road by Deirdre Kinahan is a play that rages in a tiny room. Fraught, funny and ferocious, it testifies to the pain of carrying the memory of sexual assault throughout a lifetime.A play about secret trauma and public revelation, Rathmines Road bristles with tension and interrogates catharsis to ask: when and how do we take responsibility?The play premiered at the Abbey Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival 2018, previewing at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght, in a co-production between Fishamble and the Abbey Theatre.

In 1919, Badgersbridge Village Hall is Margaret's domain and the last place she expected to come face to face with Grace, who knew and loved Margaret's brother. This chance meeting results in an unlikely pairing that will change the course of both of their futures.Fast-forward to 2019. Mirjana from the care company is waiting to meet Sean's mother to help her stay in her own home. Mirjana is from Sarajevo, but has lived in the village since escaping the war there as a teenager. The village hall has been her solace and proves an unlikely link between them.With music, waltzing and unexpected connections, Deirdre Kinahan's play Crossings dances through a century, exploring how we return, resettle and adapt.The play was first seen on a UK tour in 2018, in a co-production between Pentabus Theatre Company and New Perspectives.

'The short play – very traditional to Irish theatre – is a little jewel of a structure, a lightning flash on a different world, the illumination made all the more acute by brevity' Deirdre KinahanDeirdre Kinahan is an award-winning playwright and member of Aosdána, Ireland's elected organisation of outstanding artists. This volume brings together five of her short plays, taken from the full span of her writing career, each of them shining a light into a forgotten corner of our humanity, giving voice to irrepressible characters that the world has done its best to overlook.In Bé Carna (Tall Tales, 1999), five women reflect on their lives as prostitutes on the streets of Dublin, a dark tale inspired by true-life stories, reverberating with humanity, warmth and comic humour.In Hue & Cry (Tall Tales/Bewley's Café Theatre, 2007), two Dublin cousins, Damian and Kevin, are reunited for a family funeral in a highly charged encounter full of disillusion, denial and dark laughter.In Bogboy (Tall Tales/Solstice Arts Centre, 2010), originally written as a radio play for RTÉ, two lost souls – a young heroin addict and a reclusive middle-aged farmer – discover a budding friendship in the bogs of Meath, until a terrible secret comes to light.Wild Notes (Solas Nua, Washington D.C., 2018) explores the impact of colonialism through a meeting between Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and abolitionist who visited Ireland in the 1840s, and a young Irishwoman hoping to emigrate to the country he's running from.An Old Song, Half Forgotten (Abbey Theatre, 2023) opens a window into the life and soul of an older actor who is living in care with Alzheimer's disease, rebuilding a man just as he begins to crack and fade. Winner of the inaugural Pratchett Prize for challenging the stigma of Alzheimer's Disease.