CloudNine

My debut collection of poems, "Sweeney as a Girl", was published last year by Dedalus Press. Due to a cycling accident, in which I managed to break my wrist, I have really only been able to promote the collection more recently. I read at the Cork International Poetry Fesival last year and have just read at the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, both great events. Now fully recovered and lifting weights (thank God!) I am hoping to read in the UK later this year, too. While the book is a "debut collection", it includes work written over the past decade or so, and includes a few poems that have won awards or were shortlisted or nominated for them.  The medieval Irish myth Bhuile Suibhne, about Suibhne mac Colmáin, king of the Dál nAraidi, or King Sweeney, who was banished and changed into a bird then travelled all over Ireland, has inspired many writers, from Flann O’Brien to Seamus Heaney. The story begins in County Down and in Heaney’s  Sweeney Astray  ...

Since I last posted here about my play Belfast Girls, it has been staged in Germany, in New York twice, in Australia again and in Ireland! It returned to Ireland this Autumn and is currently touring. Presented again by Quintessance Theate, the play has a new cast and a new director in Rhiann Jeffrey. It is also a different production, and seems ready-made for its need now to be a portable, touring entity. The play previewed in Drogheda last week and is currently on in An Grianan Theatre in Letterkenny. I will get to see it a few times during its 24-show tour and I'm looking forward to it. There are a few production shots of the Irish show below. Some of the reviews the play received in New York were wonderful. Such as: "Skillfully structured ... Five wonderful actors" New Yorker ★★★★ Front Row ★★★★ NY Stage Review ★★★★ Total Theater "One of the most ... considered portraits of the harm Ireland has done to women ... that I have ever seen" Irish Central ...

  Overall, I had a busy 2020. Despite having no shows on (two productions of Belfast Girls and a production of the female version of Leopoldville were all cancelled this year), breaking the pattern for the past five years  of at least two play productions a year , I wrote fairly consistently and read every day. Once again however, as with last year, my reading of contemporary works mostly consisted of books I was asked to review - otherwise I read either classics or not-so-recent contemporary fiction. This is not as a snub to the plethora of brilliant new novels and novelists out there but simply because I have a very long catch-up list and I just happen to be a slow (though careful) reader. I also watched a lot of TV drama and far fewer films than I usually do (mainly due to Covid restrictions impacting the film industry and cinemas). I also reread The Theatre and its Double by Antonin Artaud and the plays of Sarah Kane. I wrote about this for Samuel French during the year ...

In 2019 there were two magnificent productions of BELFAST GIRLS - and a reading of the play in Washington DC. BELFAST GIRLS premiered in August in Australia, at the Q Theatre in Queanbeyan, New SouthWales. Produced by Echo Theatre and directed by Jordan Best, this production did fantastically well and received a number of glowing reviews. I was so sorry to miss it and really hope that Jordan and the cast get to do it again. Here are some shots from this beautiful show: The next production was by the Swedish company, Batalj Scenkonst and this took place in Stockholm in November. This production marks the first production of the play in translation and luckily I was able to attend the opening night. Malin Erikson directed an absolutely stunning cast and I thought this was an incredibly beautiful show. Very physical and visual, with brilliant use of lighting and music. Even though I don't speak or understand Swedish I was completely moved by this show and really ho...

I was very sorry to learn of the death at Christmas of Irish literary critic, Eileen Battersby. A couple of years ago I reviewed her novel “Teethmarks on my Tongue" for a publication that had doubled-up on reviews so my review did not get published. I'm so sad about that as I really liked her novel. It was quiet and beautifully written. Here's my review now, for your interest, published on my blog.               Eileen Battersby                                           TEETHMARKS ON MY TONGUE         395PP. Dalkey Archive Press. UK £13.50             978 1 62897 147 7 “By the dawn of the 20th century, Europe’s liberties were the liberties denied so many Americans, whether racial, ...

The cast of THE NATURALISTS: Michael Mellamphy, Tim Ruddy,  John Keating, Sarah Street In the middle of this year I was contacted by New York’s Pond Theatre Company. I had sent the directors of this group some plays of mine and in the previous year they had staged two readings – Belfast Girls and Leopoldville. They had also staged some scenes from the all-female version of Leopoldville -  a piece I’m still currently working on - and earlier this year read this work back-to-back with the all-male original version. But the play they were contacting me about this summer was an earlier play, The Naturalists – and they wanted to stage the World Premiere in September! Of course I said yes! I wrote The Naturalists in 2009 and it had a staged reading at the Flat Lake Festival in Monaghan in 2010, directed by Padraic McIntyre of Livin’ Dred Theatre Company. That reading went well but because I'd overheard a producer who we’d invited to see the play, someone who m...