Last updated 9th May 2026

Balally Players

30th April 2026

Balally Players Theatre Company has been a key contributor to the amateur theatre movement since its first production in 1983. Based in the Balally area between Dundrum and Sandyford, the company was founded to provide a creative outlet for local people and has grown into a respected and ambitious theatre group with a strong sense of community.

From its earliest years, Balally Players developed a reputation for producing a wide range of work. The company regularly stages full-length plays, Christmas variety shows and one-act productions for the drama festival circuit. It is also well known for its outdoor Shakespeare productions, traditionally performed in the Walled Garden at St Enda’s Park, which have become a highlight of its annual programme.

Balally Players began competing on the festival circuit in the late 1980s and has since achieved significant success both nationally and internationally. The company has toured widely with its one-act plays and represented Ireland at prestigious international festivals, including the Mondial du Théâtre in Monaco and Belgium’s Spots op West festival.

In recent years, the company has also enjoyed notable success on the full-length circuit. Last year marked a particularly strong achievement, with Balally Players placing second at the All-Ireland Full Length Drama Festival and winning the Abbey Award, recognising excellence in production and performance at national level.

Now over forty years old, Balally Players continues to balance artistic ambition with accessibility, offering high-quality theatre while fostering participation, learning, and collaboration within its membership and the wider community.

Play Synopsis

Heaven by Eugene O’Brien follows Mal and Mairead, a middle-aged couple returning to Mairead’s hometown for a family wedding. Over the course of a weekend, they find themselves surrounded by memories, old friends, familiar places and the ghosts of their past.

As they drink, dance and reminisce, their story moves between the funny and the deeply emotional, revealing the cracks beneath a long-shared life. What starts as a simple trip home becomes a moment of reckoning – about love, aging, compromise and the choices that quietly shape a life together over time.

Heaven captures the intimacy and complexity of long relationships – full of warmth, regret, tenderness and small moments of grace. It’s a play about ordinary people trying to make sense of where they’ve come from and where they’re going, finding something close to redemption in the process.

Heaven won the Irish Times Award for Best New Play in 2022.

Wexford Drama Group

1st May 2026

Wexford Drama Group was founded in 1966 in the Dun Mhuire Theatre in Wexford Town.
WDG performs three full length plays per year, a summer production, an October production to coincide with the Wexford Festival Opera and a Drama Circuit entry in March.
We have happily qualified for the All Ireland Drama Finals for the last four years consecutively.

Play Synopsis

An Irishman, an English man and an American are held hostage in a Lebanese jail. As the three men strive for survival, they also strive to overcome their personal and nationalistic differences.

Kilmeen Drama Group

2nd May 2026

Kilmeen Drama Group are based in Rossmore, West Cork and regularly participate on the 1-Act and 3-Act festival circuits, as well as producing shows locally in Rossmore. In December 2025, Kilmeen won the All-Ireland 1-Act Finals with ‘From Eden’.

Play Synopsis

Trapped in a small room, two people pass the time by vividly inventing and performing the lives
of an imagined town, using storytelling as a means of survival. As the games grow darker, they
are forced to confront mortality, authorship, and the unspoken rule that one of them must
remain.

Bunclody/Kilmishall Drama Group

3rd May 2026

The Bunclody/Kilmishall Drama Group has a rich history of producing engaging performances and has been a significant part of the local community’s cultural life. Founded in 1998, the group has been involved in various drama festivals and has won prestigious awards for their productions. The group’s commitment to quality and community engagement is evident in their performances and the events they host.

Play Synopsis

The play is a celebrated semi-autobiographical ‘memory play’. It looks at the complex bond between a son and his adoptive father – bittersweet, poignant & humorous.

Charlie Tynan, now a successful writer, returns to his childhood home following the death of his adoptive father whom he called ‘Da’. As he sorts through old papers and prepares to hand the house back to the Corporation, he finds that he cannot truly leave the past behind.

Though Charlie desperately wants to evict Da from his mind, he will realize that his identity is inextricably linked to the man who raised him.

Ballycogley Players

4th May 2026

Founded in 1975, Ballycogley Players Drama Group are a close-knit ensemble
based in South Wexford. We currently have over 40 members in our group ranging
from the age of 17 up to 80. The group undertake charity performances for local
organisations and communities every year as well as performing their One Act and
full-length productions. In 2024 the group qualified for the RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival for the first time in our history. Ballycogley Players welcome new members to join our drama family. 2025 was a milestone year for the group as we celebrated our 50 th anniversary. We are delighted to be taking our production of ‘All My Sons’ to the RTÉ All-Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone this year.

 Play Synopsis

In Joe and Kate Keller’s family garden, an apple tree – a memorial to their son Larry, lost in the Second World War – has been torn down by a storm. But his loss is not the only part of the family’s past they can’t put behind them. Not everybody’s forgotten the court case that put Joe’s partner in jail, or the cracked engine heads his factory produced which caused it and dropped twenty-one pilots out of the sky…

Dalkey Players

5th May 2026

Dalkey Players celebrates its 50th year this year.
Based in Dalkey, Co Dublin, we strive to create theatre that engages a wide range of people in our community. We have a broad membership with ages from 18 to 80. We are committed to equality of opportunity, encouraging our membership to perform, to take on backstage and technical roles, to write, to explore new works, and new ways of bringing our work to audiences.
We have participated on both the Full Length and One Act Circuits for many years winning the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival in 2017 (Deadman’s Cell Phone) and in 2023 (By the Bog of Cats). We were Runners Up in 2016 (Jane Eyre) and in 2024 (The Crucible) (The Abbey Award).
We are delighted to be participating in the 2026

Play Synopsis

A fable that tells the story of young love, greed and bitterness.
A scheming matchmaker and a resentful woman, force a young girl to marry a much older man.
It is a heart-breaking story of how youth and innocence can be destroyed by the greed and cynicism of an older generation. But Keane is also even handed in reminding us of the loneliness and poverty that drives the self-interest of Thomasheen Séan Rua and Mena.

Brideview Drama Group

6th May 2026

Brideview Drama are based in Tallow Co.Waterford. The group was formed in the late 1980s and began competing in the early 90s, winning the Confined Three-Act Finals in 2005 with ‘Moonshine’ by Jim Nolan.
They qualified for the Open All-Ireland Finals for the first time in 2018 with ‘Stolen Child’, finishing in second place. They reached the finals again in 2019 with ‘Philadelphia, Here I Come’ finishing in 3rd place.
In 2024, Brideview Drama achieved 2nd. Place in the Open All Ireland Final of the One Act competition with ‘Save Me’.
In 2025 the group qualified once more for the Three-Act All Ireland Finals with ‘The Weir’ by Conor McPherson.
Brideview annually stage a very successful Autumn production also in their local community.

Play Synopsis

The story revolves around the living memories of Charlie, a grown man who returns home to Ireland after the death of his father only to find the old man’s presence still very much alive.
Through a series of flashbacks and interactions with both living and memory characters, the narrative unfolds in a non-linear fashion, allowing audiences to witness the evolution of Charlie’s thoughts and feelings about his father and their shared history.
Group Information

Bridge Drama

7th May 2026

Bridge Drama is based in Castlebridge, Co. Wexford. The group won the RTE All-Ireland Drama Final in 2016 with Lost In Yonkers by Neil Simons and were placed 3rd in last year’s finals with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Play Synopsis

In this deeply moving play, a family is tested by the complexities of love, identity and the passage of time. Bob and Fran Price have devoted their lives to raising their four children, only to find that in the messy, imperfect nature of family, the bonds they’ve worked so hard to build are slowly unravelling. As their adult children confront their own personals battles – from love and heartbreak to self-discovery, the Price family is forced to confront uncomfortable truths that will change them forever.

Corofin Dramatic Society

8th May 2026

Corofin has a proud dramatic tradition dating back over 150 years. Since 1945, the society has staged over 120 productions, ranging from serious drama to comedy, from farce to pantomime and pageant. The group have been regular participants on the amateur circuit since 1970, both one-act and full-length. Corofin Dramatic Society (CDS) qualified for the One-act All-Ireland finals eight times, winning on two occasions 1993 (confined) and 2011(confined). CDS won the full length Confined All- Ireland in 2008 and have since qualified for the Open All-Ireland finals in Athlone on seven occasions. The group has produced five playwrights.

Play Synopsis

Dr. Vivian Bearing is a renowned professor of English literature. When she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Vivian undergoes aggressive experimental treatment, confronting the reality of her mortality with the same intellectual rigor she once applied to her scholarship. As her illness progresses, she reflects on her life, her teaching, and her emotional detachment, ultimately discovering the value of compassion and human connection over intellect and wit. The play is both deeply moving and darkly humorous, exploring themes of life, death, and the search for meaning.