Awe-inspiring achievement for Ballybofey playwright Shaun Byrne 

Ballybofey playwright Shaun Byrne’s awe inspiring talent in bringing his most recent play ‘Margaret’ to the finals of the 2024 RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival next month with the Ballyshannon Drama Society, would be a remarkable feat in itself, were it not for 2022 and 2023, where he also authored two new plays which also earned their spurs to the finals.

A teacher of English, history and “mostly maths” at the Finn Valley College for the past twelve years, and before that 17 years at Mulroy College in Milford, Shaun remarked that someone in Ballyshannon had asked him last year if it was not unusual to have a playwright who was also a maths teacher?

He whimsically retorted that the great Brian Friel taught Maths for ten years before embarking on his playwright journey, so he was in good company.

Regarding his own path he recalled: “It was 30 years ago when Kieran Quinn from the Butt Drama Circle and the Balor gave me a call. 

“The Director of this play ‘Margaret’, Monica Doherty, I would have acted in three or four plays with Monica and got to two All Ireland’s before with her. 

“With Monica I would have won best supporting actor at the All Ireland’s in the Open section, called “By the Bog of Cats”, by Marina Carr.

ABOVE: Monica Doherty, Director and cast of 'Margaret' Shaun Byrne and Rachel O Connor with some of the trophies won on this year’s festival circuit which will culminate in their participation in the RTE All Ireland Drama Awards in Athlone

He said that it was a natural enough progression from acting to the directing and finally the writing, “which really took off during Covid”. 

“I had been messing about a wee bit beforehand but it was during Covid times that gave me a chance to sit down and take it to the next stage. I do a concert with the school here every year at Christmas, so I would have written stuff for that, but just more for fun, with the kids

“But the writing has really taken off now. This is the third play that we have put into the All Ireland festival competition and it’s the third one to qualify too, so I don’t think it has been done before, people are telling me, so it’s a good achievement,” he modestly said.    

ABOVE: The last performance of 'Margaret' before the All Ireland Finals takes place on Monday, May 6 in Ballyshannon

His first play “An Incident with Dave Cotter” with the Butt Drama Circle featured in the 2022 All Ireland Drama Award Finals and while it missed out on the top prize Shaun still carried away the Adjudicators Award for Excellence in New Writing. It focused on Bloody Sunday from the viewpoint of a paratrooper, who was there.

Last year, again with the Butt Drama Circle, he penned ‘Darkness Echoing’ a family drama about a father/son relationship, with the son coming to terms with his father’s cancer and coming death, which also won its way to the drama finals in Athlone.

“It was quite serious,” Shaun recalled.

“My plays tend to be on quite serious matters, but there is a lot of dark humour in them.”

Regarding this year’s offering in the All Ireland Finals, the remarkable Rachel O’Connor from Belleek plays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her late eighties, who is suffering from dementia and exploring her troubled relationships from the miners to the Irish. The play under the direction of Monica Doherty, brings audiences back through war time tunes, her husband Denis Thatcher and her fractured imagination.

Last year, Rachel won the All Ireland ‘Best Actres in a Supporting Role” with Ballyshannon for their production of ‘A Delicate Balance’

“You have no enemies, you say? If you have none, then small is the work that you have done.”   

Shaun spoke of how the play had developed since the start:

“It started off as a one act, one woman play. When I originally wrote, I did write Denis (her husband) in, but then I wrote him out for the first performance. 

“Then we went back to it. It was John Travers from the Ballyshannon Drama Group that suggested that I go back and try to write Denis back into it. And that’s what I did and Denis’ character expanded in the play

“I play Denis, who by then is ten years dead. Because of her dementia, Denis exists in her imagination. He appears on stage while also morphing into ‘eighties’ light entertainers including Bruce Forsythe, Tommy Cooper and Del Boy, because he had been a bad mimic with her.”

Another aspect of the performances is the use of sound with one adjudicator on the path to the finals describing it as “like an extra character in the play”.

ABOVE: Rachel O'Connor (right) scooped a best supporting actress gong at last year's All Ireland Drama finals with the Ballyshannon Drama Society's production of 'A Delicate Balance' by Edward Albee

The last chance to see local performances before the Ulster and RTE All Ireland Finals are in An Grianan Letterkenny on April 26 and the Abbey Centre Ballyshannon on May 6.

The RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival, which is held under the auspices of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland, will run from Thursday May 2 to Friday May 10.

The Ballyshannon Drama Society will premiere ‘Margaret’, there on Friday May 10.