GAA play comes to Dundalk's Spirit Store

Two well known local Dundalk actors, Paul McGee and Mary Brennan step into leading roles in a newly written play entitled:

The Manager, which will be staged in the Spirit Store this coming Friday.

The play, written by long term former GAA correspondent with the Dundalk Democrat Joe Hanratty, is centred around a GAA club known locally as The Saints who after a very poor league campaign are on the verge of relegation from Division 1 to Division 2.

The Saints can only avoid “the drop” by winning the county senior championship.

They have fought their way by the slimmest of margins into the county championship final.

But with so much resting on this result, tensions in the camp emerge and tough decisions are made.

These decisions impact on loyalty and ambition and relationships are tested to the full.

Paul McGee plays the Bainisteoir (manager) and Mary Brennan plays his very supportive wife Mary Boyle.

Winning a county final, as team manager Steven Boyle says “puts a spring in the step of the whole community” and in this play we get a look at the impact success or the lack of it, has not only on team management but on their wives and family.

This play is full of tension and humour as it takes a behind the scenes looks at how this cauldron of emotions, tests relationships.

It also looks at the demands of being involved with a modern GAA club has on all engaged in it.

There are very few plays written within the context of the GAA even though it’s the most popular sport in Ireland.

This play with a cast of thirteen actors drawn from counties Louth and Monaghan, hopes to help address that deficit and promises to be a night of insight and entertainment.