Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Moulin Rouge!: Our critics’ verdicts on the pantos and shows to catch this Christmas
The Snow Queen and A Christmas Carol are among the highlights over the festive period
Abbey Theatre
Playwright Seán O’Casey’s daughter: ‘He never seemed old to me... he was quite adventurous’
Seán O’Casey’s daughter Shivaun, a living link to one of our most famous playwrights, has written a memoir that includes previously unpublished letters from her father
‘Over a million kids have come here’: 30 years of The Ark children’s cultural centre
Creative director Aideen Howard says facility remains unique on the international stage
Abbey Theatre announces centenary Plough and the Stars production for 2026
New plays by Marina Carr, Frank McGuinness and Una McKevitt to also feature in forthcoming season
Dublin Gothic at the Abbey: ‘It’s big, unapologetically dramatic, linguistically beautiful’
Barbara Bergin’s play follows three inner-city families across a century from the 1880s, and features more than 150 characters
Dublin Gothic at the Abbey review: Prepare for some archly provocative character assassination
Barbara Bergin’s huge, complex new play takes aim at some Irish heroes as it covers a century of life in the capital
Christmas calendar: What’s on around Ireland this festive season
Fun and family friendly events and activities from panto to light shows, candlelit concerts to craft workshops
Is the newspaper arts review dying or could it be rescued by subscribers?
If one culprit looms behind these shifts, it is the early digital consensus that everything should be free
Bán, at Dublin Theatre Festival, is a brave, brilliantly acted ensemble piece
Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: The gifted Carys D Coburn reworks The House of Bernarda Alba in grim 1980s Ireland
The God and His Daughter, at Dublin Theatre Festival, has plenty of classical lamentation but not enough Marina Carr
Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: Second part of Marina Carr’s reworking of Sophocles’ Theban plays has plenty of lamentation but not enough Carr
Marina Carr’s The Boy, at Dublin Theatre Festival, asks us to look unflinchingly at the world we have made
Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: Version of the Oedipal myth distinguishes itself with unique Irish sense of fatalism and wit
Playwright Carys D Coburn on Bán: ‘Can we be real to one another and be family? Often the answer is no’
Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: Coburn’s prowess is in addressing the space between what we say and what we know
Derry Power obituary: Irish actor appeared in some of Britain’s best-known films and sitcoms
Career included roles in Z-Cars, My Left Foot, Educating Rita and Intermission
Marina Carr and Caitríona McLaughlin on The Boy: ‘We’re constantly being told what to do, what to think. We’ll turn into zombies’
Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: The writer and director on their new production, a retelling of Sophocles’ Theban plays
Abbey Theatre’s box office revenue plunges in 2024 amid summer closure
Abbey's box office revenue fell in 2024 amid summer closure
The Revenger’s Tragedy: ‘I love the idea that there’s a Jacobean revenge tragedy inside each bedroom rapper’s head’
Dublin Fringe Festival 2025: +353 Presents: The Revenger’s Tragedy gives a drill update to a restored classic of Jacobean theatre
Frank Grimes obituary: Versatile film and stage actor who found mainstream recognition in Coronation Street
Dubliner was recognised with a Tony nomination for his work in Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy on Broadway in 1970
The absurdity of office culture: ‘Some of the rules, I was, like, what is this?’
Caitríona Daly, author of the new Abbey play The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4, on sending up the absurdity of office culture
‘I loved every day I worked with Seán and will miss him’: tributes paid to beloved RTÉ presenter Seán Rocks
Donal Ryan, Elaine Feeney, Sinéad Gleeson and more pay tribute to the Arena broadcaster and presenter
Seán Rocks: Ireland has lost one of its great cultural champions
Late broadcaster’s easy wit and big-hearted spirit belied a lifelong devotion to our rich culture
Ireland in the 1980s was bloody awful, but there was at least one good reason not to emigrate
Galway’s Druid theatre company had a superb, stubborn belief that a basket case of a nation could also be a Moses basket
The Guide: Billie Eilish, Mogwai, All Together Now and other events to see, shows to book and ones to catch before they end
July 26th-August 1st, 2025: The best movies, music, art and more coming your way this week
Vincent O’Neill: ‘He taught us how to say so much without saying a single word’
Meeting in Paris with the renowned Marcel Marceau prompted radical change of career course
Static review: A stranded astronaut, an Irish radio ham and snatches of a strange, poignant frequency
Jimmy McAleavey’s play, at the Peacock, fictionalises and slightly flattens a moment of unlikely connection
Róisín Ingle: This new play was the best thing I’ve seen on an Irish stage in a very long time
Kevin Barry’s The Cave is the best play I’ve seen on an Irish stage in a very long time, and the c-word is used quite a lot
The Cave review: Tommy Tiernan is perfectly cast as a downtrodden barroom philosopher in Kevin Barry’s bleakly funny play
Theatre: Directed with discipline and clarity by Caitríona McLaughlin, Tiernan, Aaron Monaghan and Judith Roddy slip comfortably into well-fitting skins
Kevin Barry: ‘You can almost fool yourself into thinking there’s no class system in rural Ireland’
The author on writing, living in the Sligo countryside and how digitalisation is warping our sense of reality
Scorched Earth review: An individual tragedy and a national malaise
Dublin Dance Festival 2025: Luke Murphy tackles Ireland’s obsession with land and the exclusion it leads to
On the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s death, why is Irish theatre still so white?
Despite calls for cultural change, black representation on the Irish stage is still years behind, but there are signs of improvement
Irish artist Michael Kane: ‘Patrick Kavanagh did nothing else but create art. And that was my ideal’
The Project Arts Centre founder, who is marking his 90th birthday with a solo show, is a firm believer in the idea that art truly matters. He lives fully surrounded by it
Brendan Gleeson to return to the stage for the first time in 10 years in Conor McPherson’s play The Weir
A new production of the award-winning drama, directed by its writer, opens in Dublin in August before a West End transfer
Paul Mescal to return to Irish stage in ‘taut, explosive, pressure cooker of a play’
Star will appear in Abbey and UK National Theatre coproduction of A Whistle in the Dark, by Tom Murphy
Calling extremely early birds: Beckett tickets go on sale 11 years before performances
In Krapp’s Last Tape, Richard Dormer and Samuel West will use recordings they made 30 years earlier, in line with Beckett’s vision
Youth’s the Season–? review: Timely revival of Mary Manning’s funny, dark, outrageously overlooked play
Theatre: Sarah Jane Scaife directs an entertaining Abbey production of an endlessly quotable 1930 comedy
‘The Constitution will soon put women back in their place. Everything is fizzling away’: Sarah Jane Scaife on Youth’s the Season–?
Mary Manning wrote her first play in 1931, when she was 26. It’s astonishing how modern it can feel, says the director of the Abbey’s new production
Tommy Tiernan to star in new Kevin Barry play as part of Abbey programme
New slate will also feature Marina Carr’s The Boy, and work from Barbara Bergin
Lynne Parker: The Abbey does so much. But Ireland needs a national theatre for the 21st century
The future of Irish theatre looks bleak. It’s time to overhaul the way the sector works – including where the money goes, says Rough Magic’s artistic director
Milk: Spectacle is tinged with tragedy in the Abbey’s Palestinian dance play
Bashar Murkus and Khashabi use the tools of contemporary theatre to portray despair in new ways
More sex, please: Bridget Jones, Colin Firth and the astonishing rebranding of Jane Austen
Thirty years ago, one event made Austen more popular than almost any other contemporary or close successor
Abbey Theatre gets €9.5m in strategic funding from Arts Council, €1m more than last year
Almost €60 million spread across nationwide arts bodies
2025 on stage: 21 plays, operas and dance works to see over the next 12 months
From King Lear at the Gate to Dr Strangelove starring Steve Coogan, the coming year’s stage line-up includes jukebox musicals, period romcom and a play that probes the Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake
Aviation tycoon in major merger on Shrewsbury Road after buying €6.75m house next door
Plus: Derry Girls actress Siobhán McSweeney discontinues Liss Ard case, Denis O’Brien’s house fetches €3.26m and Imma patrons get to go away with the director
The best theatre of 2024: Blessed are the risk-takers
Gambling on longer runs of unfamiliar work paid off in a gratifying number of cases. But Irish theatre still isn’t as inclusive as it should be
Ralph Fiennes at the Abbey Theatre: An electrifying, moving reading of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets
The likely triple Oscar nominee, star of Conclave, is in fluent form at the national theatre’s TS Eliot Lecture for 2024
‘Watch your step’: Steve Coogan takes Patrick Freyne backstage at Dr Strangelove
The comic actor is playing four parts in the new stage version of Stanley Kubrick’s film, which comes to Ireland in 2025
Emma review: Agreeably quirky take on Austen shakes the story’s structure a little too vigorously
Theatre: Toni O’Rourke plays Emma with gusto, and Hannah Mamalis is hilarious as Harriet. Despite some narrative overreaching, you’ll probably leave happy
Is this the final chapter for Books at One as Dublin and Cork shops close?
Plus: How Gerard Hutch got his nickname ‘The Monk’, Fair City actor’s house sale, and AI guru Allan Beechinor’s court troubles
Irish Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Development and diversity – Deserving of a wide readership
This comprehensive and wonderfully written book serves to remind us of how much outstanding Irish theatre has been produced in the past quarter-century
The Abbey has fun with Jane Austen’s Emma: ‘Our production is curious about her libido’
Kate Hamill’s adaptation, starring Toni O’Rourke, explores the psychology of what drives the much-loved protagonist, says director Claire O’Reilly
Jenna Ortega and Tim Burton take seats at Abbey in Dublin for Aidan Quinn and Steve Buscemi one-off
Stars take part in reading of Sam Shepard’s play Ages of the Moon for Irish national theatre’s Love at First Sight season
‘A period piece, a has-been, totally unknown to this generation’: Rediscovering WM Letts
Winifred Mabel Letts was a groundbreaking female author who wrote across literary forms and genres throughout the first three-quarters of the 20th century. Her work and legacy merit greater attention
Actor Kate Gilmore: ‘I look at myself – no mortgage, my car is falling apart, I have no money in the bank’
Irish actor Kate Gilmore has taken on what might be her greatest challenge yet: performing alone on stage in Disco Pigs, creator Enda Walsh’s experimental new play at the Peacock Theatre in Dublin
Steve Buscemi to join fellow star Aidan Quinn for Abbey Theatre performance
Buscemi and Quinn will read Sam Shepard’s Ages of the Moon at the Irish national theatre in Dublin this weekend
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Stardust
Inquests into the nightclub fire that led to the deaths of 48 people
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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Weddings, Births, Deaths and other family notices