Poetry Ireland / Éigse Éireann and Fishamble: The New Play Company present
Ireland Hero History
Written by Colin Murphy Directed by Aoife Spillane-Hinks
Rehearsed readings of a new site-specific play by Colin Murphy, exploring the rich and varied history of No.11 Parnell Square.
Fishamble and Poetry Ireland, although working in different art forms, are committed to collaborating with artists, sharing stories, and engaging with the community in Dublin 1, where we are both based, just around the corner from each other. Fishamble is delighted to be collaborating for the first time with our friends at Poetry Ireland, on a piece of new theatre which investigates the fascinating history of number 11 Parnell Square.
No. 11 Parnell Square East is a building haunted by politics and poetry – and not all
these ghosts see eye to eye. Join us for a piece of paranormal theatre celebrating
the history of this remarkable building.
The iconic Georgian building holds over 300 years of history, from its genteel
beginnings to periods of political unrest and shifting urban life. It has at times been
home to aristocrats, landed gentry, politicians, servants, art collectors, merchants,
writers, and local government amongst many others…
Upcoming
Performances
About the Production
Running Time
45 minutesAge Guidance
14+Creative Team
Colin Murphy
Colin Murphy has written for stage, television, film and radio, and has been nominated for an Irish Theatre Award, an Irish Film and Television Academy award and a Celtic Media Award; his radio documentaries have received a Prix Marulic silver award and a New York Festivals bronze award. Two of his plays are published by Bloomsbury.
With Fishamble Theatre Company, he has written a series of political documentary dramas, two of which, Guaranteed! and Haughey/Gregory, are published by Bloomsbury. Guaranteed! was acclaimed as “a national event” by the Irish Times; it and its sequel, Bailed Out!, “injected a new and vital ingredient into the Irish theatre landscape”, wrote the Irish Independent.
His Easter Rising play, Inside the GPO, was described as “deeply moving and utterly memorable… deserves to be remembered as pivotal” by the Sunday Independent.
Colin is best known for his series of plays for Fishamble about Irish political history – recently collected in the volume Colin Murphy’s Political Plays, published by Methuen Drama. The United States vs Ulysses will tour Ireland in 2027, after a successful off-Broadway run at the Irish Arts Center, New York, in 2025. His documentary A Day in May, directed by Colm Quinn and produced by John Kelleher Media, is currently available on the RTÉ Player. He is the 2026 Rooney Writer Fellow at Trinity Long Room Hub. He writes a weekly column for the Sunday Independent.
Productions
Aoife Spillane-Hinks
Aoife Spillane-Hinks is an opera and theatre director and dramaturg based in Dublin.
She has a special interest in developing and directing new work.
She is the artistic director and co-founder and of Then This Theatre. She is the lead artist and founder of the Literary Department at Axis Ballymun.
Upcoming projects include Much ado about Nothing by Stanford at the 2026 Wexford Festival Opera.
Recent work includes directing Much Ado About Nothing by C.V. Stanford at the 2026 Wexford Festival Opera. Associate Director on Rusalka with Irish National Opera. Love at the End of Time by Roderick Ford, for Once Off Productions and Asylum Productions, at Project Arts Centre.
Other directing credits include Lady Gregory in America (Wexford Festival Opera); Ironbound (Abbey Theatre/Dublin Theatre Festival); Spirits Unsurrendered (Kilmainham Gaol/Royal Irish Academy of Music/Then This Theatre); Holy Mary by Eoin Colfer (Olympia Theatre/Breda Cashe Productions); The Spanish Tragedy (Dublin Youth Theatre); King Arthur by Henry Purcell (Royal Irish Academy of Music); A Thing I Cannot Name and 20 Shots of Opera (Irish National Opera); Spotless, Collected Stories and The Yellow Wallpaper (Then This Theatre); It’s Not About Love (Making Strange/Dublin Fringe); The Motherf***er with the Hat (ORion Productions); Run /Don’t Run (Project Arts Centre/National Tour); The 24 Hour Plays: Dublin (Abbey Theatre); Hamlet (Second Age); Boston Marriage (Gate Theatre/Dublin Theatre Festival); Sharon’s Grave, Waiting for Godot, and Our Class (PICT Classic Theatre, Pittsburgh, USA); Love at the End of Time (Project Arts Centre).
Aoife was a recipient of a 2022 Markievicz Award from the Arts Council.
Aoife trained as a director on the Rough Magic SEEDS programme. She holds a BA in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University and an MA in Drama and Theatre Studies from NUI Galway.
Productions
Evie McGuinness
Evie is the Assistant Producer for Fishamble: The New Play Company.
Her previous work with the company includes The Black Wolfe Tone, The Leap and The Navigator Project. She is Line Producer for Brokentalkers covering their international touring in 2025 and 2026 as well as new production The Mirror Stage. She has worked as a stage manager for theatre for the last ten years. She graduated with a distinction from The Lir Academy’s Stage Management and Technical Theatre course in 2016. She has worked as a stage manager with The Abbey, The Gate, Landmark, Rough Magic, Pan Pan, Collapsing Horse, The Local Group, Brokentalkers, This is Pop Baby and Livin’ Dred both nationally and internationally. Her previous stage management work includes MASTERCLASS by Brokentalkers (Dublin Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, RISING Festival, Sydney Theatre Festival), A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Dan Colley (Edinburgh Fringe Festival, National Tour, Imaginate, Auckland Arts Festival) and Lost Lear by Dan Colley (Dublin Theatre Festival, National Tour, Aotearoa Festival.)
Productions
Production Team
Jim Culleton
Jim Culleton is the Artistic Director of Fishamble: The New Play Company, for which he has directed productions on tour throughout Ireland, UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. His productions for Fishamble have won Olivier, The Stage, Scotsman Fringe First, and Irish Times Best Director awards.
Jim has also directed for the Abbey, the Gaiety, the Belgrade, 7:84 Scotland, Project, Amharclann de hÍde, Tinderbox, Passion Machine, the Ark, Second Age, Dundee Rep, CoisCéim/Crash Ensemble/GIAF, Frontline Defenders, Amnesty International, Little Museum of Dublin, Fighting Words, Soho Theatre, Scripts Festival, and Baptiste Programme. He has directed audio plays for Audible, BBC, RTÉ Radio 1, and RTÉ lyric fm. He has directed for Vessel and APA (Australia), TNL (Canada), Solas Nua, Mosaic, and Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Odyssey (LA), Origin, Irish Arts Center, New Dramatists, and 59E59 (Off-Broadway), as well as for Trafalgar Theatre Productions on the West End, and IAC/Symphony Space on Broadway. Jim has taught for NYU, NUI, GSA, Uversity, the Lir, Villanova, Notre Dame, UM, UMD, JNU, and TCD.
Productions
Eva Scanlan
Eva Scanlan is the Executive Director at Fishamble: The New Play Company.
Formerly producer at Fishamble, recent productions include Fight Night by Gavin Kostick (2025), Taigh/Tŷ/Teach, a trilingual co-production with partners in Scotland and Wales (2024), In Two Minds by Joanne Ryan (2023), Heaven by Eugene O’Brien (2022), Outrage by Deirdre Kinahan (2022), Duck Duck Goose by Caitríona Daly (2021), The Treaty by Colin Murphy (2021), Embargo by Deirdre Kinahan (2020), The Alternative by Michael Patrick and Oisín Kearney (2019), Rathmines Road by Deirdre Kinahan (2018), On Blueberry Hill by Sebastian Barry (2017-2021), Inside The GPO by Colin Murphy (2016) and Fishamble’s award-winning plays by Pat Kinevane King, Before, Silent, Underneath and Forgotten, and many other productions on tour in Ireland and around the world.
Eva produced The 24 Hour Plays: Dublin at the Abbey Theatre in Ireland (2012-2026), in association with The 24 Hour Plays, New York as a fundraiser for Dublin Youth Theatre. She has worked on The 24 Hour Plays on Broadway and The 24 Hour Musicals at the Gramercy Theatre in New York. Previously, she was Producer at terraNOVA Collective in New York (2012-2015) and has worked on theatre productions, events and conferences at the Bushwick Starr, 59E59 Theaters, New Ohio Theatre, the New School, the Park Avenue Armory, and Madison Square Garden.
Productions
Gavin Kostick
Gavin Kostick is a playwright, literary manager and independent dramaturg.
His works have been produced nationally and internationally. Favourite works for Fishamble include The Ash Fire, The Flesh Addict, The End of The Road and Invitation to a Journey (with CoisCeim and Crash Ensemble). The Leap is Gavin’s first play for children.
Further works include This is What We Sang for Kabosh, Fight Night, The Games People Play and At the Ford for Rise Productions and Gym Swim Party with Danielle Galligan in co-production with the O’Reilly Theatre. He wrote the libretto for the opera The Alma Fetish composed by Raymond Deane, performed at the National Concert Hall. As a performer he performed Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Complete, a six hour show for Absolut Fringe, Dublin Theatre Festival and the London Festival of Literature at the Southbank.
Gavin is currently the literary manager of Fishamble: The New Play Company, a tutor in playwriting and dramaturgy in both The Lir Academy and Trinity College Dublin as well as being a core mentor on the Tenderfoot Transition Year programme for young writers at the Civic Theatre.
Particular favourite projects that Gavin has initiated and delivered with Fishamble include Show in a Bag (with Dublin Fringe and The Irish Theatre Institute), The New Play Clinic, The Dublin Fringe New Writing Award, Tiny Plays for Ireland and A Play for Ireland.
Both for Fishamble, and as an independent dramaturg, Gavin’s projects and works he has supported have gained significant national and international award recognition including amongst others Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, BBC Stewart Parker Trust, Zebbie Awards, Dublin Fringe Awards, Business to Arts, Olivier, Scotsman Fringe First, Herald Angel and Archangel and New York Critics’ Pick.
His own plays have also received similar national and international award recognition. Gavin has recently completed a new version of The Odyssey, supported by Kilkenny Arts Festival, ClassicsNow.
Productions
Laura MacNaughton
Laura MacNaughton has worked in the professional arts sector for over twenty years in theatre, film and Dance. She has worked primarily as a General Manager, Producer and Programmer. Laura has worked at a senior level in multiple arts organisations, these include The Gate Theatre, Dublin Dance Festival and The O’Reilly Theatre. Laura is a drama facilitator and director with Belvedere College Drama Department.
Director credits include Sherlock (2024) Bringing Down The House (2025) and HOPE SPRINGS (2026).
Laura currently sits on the Producers Working Group for the Performing Arts Forum. She holds a Science Degree from Trinity College Dublin and is a classically trained musician and Associate of Trinity College London in music performance.
Laura is the Producer at Fishamble: The New Play Company and previous Fishamble credits include In Two Minds (2023), Taigh Ty Teach (2024) BREAKING (2024), The Black Wolfe Tone (2025), The Leap (2025), REFUGE (2026) and For Dolores (2026)
Productions
Sarah Bragg-Bolger
Sarah is the General Manager for Fishamble: The New Play Company. She is originally from Canada. She was previously Executive Director of Dublin Youth Theatre where she produced shows such as this is a room… (Dublin Theatre Festival), The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd (the Project Arts Center), UBU devised with CN Smith from the Alfred Jarry text (Smock Alley) and co-produced Sleepwalkers (Dublin Theatre Festival) with PanPan. She is an associate producer on 24 Hour Plays: Dublin and was formerly the Chair of Youth Theatre Ireland’s board of directors.
Previous arts and stage management work include the Lambert Puppet Theatre and the Gate Theatre (Dublin), Shakespeare’s Globe (London), Edinburgh International Festival and the Traverse Theatre (Edinburgh), and the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Toronto International Film Festival (Toronto).
Productions
Allie Whelan
Allie Whelan is the Marketing, Outreach and Engagement Manager at Fishamble: The New Play Company. Allie has worked on Mustard, King, The Humours of Bandon, In Two Minds, Breaking, Outrage, Heaven, Fight Night, The Black Wolfe Tone, The Leap, The Navigator Project, REFUGE and For Dolores with Fishamble.
Allie Whelan graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2018 with a first class honours degree in Drama & Theatre Studies. Since then she has worked in marketing, communications and social media roles with Dublin Fringe Festival (2021-2024), Poetry Ireland, Landmark Productions (Straight to Video, Walking with Ghosts, Ulysses 2.2, and Krapp’s Last Tape), Pan Pan (The Sudden, The Patient Gloria, The First Bad Man, Cascando and History Play), Glass Mask Theatre (Describe the Night, Country Music, Mother and Child and Celebrity), The RDS Visual Art Awards (2021-2024) and Music Network Ireland (2022-2023 Spring Touring Season).
Allie has also directed a number of productions, Pool (No Water) by Mark Ravenhill, winner of Best Production, Best Ensemble and Best Sound Design at ISDA 2018, By the Bog of Cats for Kildare Youth Theatre and The Terms and Conditions of Me and My Ma by Conor Burke in 2019.
As well as her work with Fishamble, Allie also works as a designer, photographer and occasionally as a chef.
Productions
Róisín Daly
Róisín is a playwright and dramaturg.
Róisín was the winner of Scripts Ireland in 2025 with her play The Waves Have Ears Too. She is currently the playwright in residence at Birr Theatre and Arts Centre for 2026. She studied an MA in Dramaturgy at the University of Amsterdam, and holds a BA in English and drama from Trinity College Dublin.
Róisín served on the reading panel for The Navigator Project and for the Fishamble New Writing Award as part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2025.While in the Netherlands, she was involved in establishing a professional association for dramaturgs (MoMo), and worked as a reviewer and researcher with Holland Festival and the Dutch National Opera for the 2025 Opera Forward Festival.
Róisín has completed an internship within the Abbey Theatre’s New Work and Literary Department, and first worked with Fishamble as an intern in 2023.