Dundalk playwright’s acclaimed Belfast Girls comes back to Louth
Jaki McCarrick’s award-winning famine drama launches its all-Ireland tour
Dundalk playwright Jaki McCarrick brings her internationally acclaimed drama Belfast Girls to Droichead Arts Centre this October before embarking on a nationwide tour.
Set in 1850, Belfast Girls tells the story of five fierce young women who face their dark pasts on a ship bound for Australia, as they leave Belfast in search of a better life. Confined in close quarters in the belly of the ship, they embark on a tumultuous sea journey as they sail away from their homeland. Secrets are revealed, enemies made, and it becomes clear that no matter where they go, there is no escaping the past.
An award-winning feminist play based on a true piece of largely untold Irish history Jaki McCarrick’s Belfast Girls follows the story of five fierce young Irish women aboard the Inchinnan travelling from Belfast to Australia during the Famine in the desperate hope of a new life abroad. But the further from home they voyage the more each of them comes to realise they cannot escape their pasts, nor the seemingly universal subjugation of their gender. Over the long ship journey the women form intense bonds, and life-changing secrets are revealed, personal and political.
This new production, directed by Rhiann Jeffrey stars an all-star cast including Debra Hill (Hope Street), Ebby O’Toole-Acheampong (Into the Badlands), Fiona Keenan O’Brien (Behind Locked Doors), Leah Rossiter (A Date for Mad Mary) Caitríona Williams (Bad Sisters Season 2), Belfast Girls will be open in Droichead Arts Centre before touring across the island of Ireland during October and November 2025.
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Written by Jaki McCarrick, an award-winning writer from Dundalk, Belfast Girls was developed at the National Theatre London and was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the 2014 BBC Tony Doyle Award. It premiered in Chicago in May 2015 to much critical acclaim and has since been staged widely internationally, with recent premieres in Australia, Sweden and New York. Jaki has recently completed the screen adaptation of the play.
Tour Details:
Droichead Arts Centre (Preview) 10 Oct
An Grianan, Letterkenny 14-15 Oct
Ramor, Virginia 17 Oct
The Hawkswell, Sligo 21-22 Oct
Garage, Monaghan 24-25 Oct
Smock Alley, Dublin 28 Oct – 1st Nov
Riverbank, Newbridge 5-6 Nov
Town Hall, Galway 11 Nov
Watergate, Kilkenny 13-14
Lyric, Belfast week of 17th Nov