Home / What's On / July / The O'Neill
drama
Sun 8 to Wed 11 July
The O'Neill
by Thomas Kilroy
An Grianán Productions
in association with the
Donegal County Council
and the Earagail Arts Festival
Flight of the Earls 1607-2007
Tickets: €12/10
Directed by David Grant
2007 marks the 400th anniversary of the ‘Flight of the Earls’, an event which signalled the end of the old Gaelic order and changed Ireland forever. This year's Earagail Arts Festival opens with a production of ‘The O’Neill’ by Thomas Kilroy.
The twenty-five strong community cast will re-create the complex world of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, a larger than life character whose political and private life was filled with conflict and intrigue. He understood Elizabethan England equally as well as the ancient Gaelic world and found himself torn between them both.
This fast-moving, action-packed play is set before, during and after the Battle of Yellow Ford, when O’Neill and his Donegal ally Red Hugh O’Donnell combined forces to engineer the greatest military defeat of an English force in Irish history. It concludes with O’Neill’s defeat at the Battle of Kinsale which ultimately led to the last of the Gaelic lordships and the end of Gaelic Ireland.
This play was last produced by The Abbey Theatre, Dublin in 1969 under the direction of Vincent Dowling. This new production will be directed by David Grant, formerly Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre, Belfast and currently Head of Drama at Queen's University, Belfast.
The author of ‘The O’Neill’, Thomas Kilroy was born in Callan, Co Kilkenny in 1934. He served as play editor at the Abbey Theatre in 1977 and was appointed Director of Field Day Theatre Company in 1988. Kilroy was Professor of English at UCG and in 1989, he resigned his professorship, to concentrate fully on writing. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature, the Irish Academy of Letters and Aosdana.
Thomas Kilroy was deservedly recognized for his 'Lifetime Achievement' in the Irish Times / ESB Theatre Awards 2004.
For more about the official commemorations of the Flight of the Earls please visit the official website:
http://www.flightoftheearls.ie/
Flight of the Earls 400 is part of the national celebration of Shared Histories organised under the aegis of the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism.
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