West Clare Drama Festival Doonbeg 2026

Season Ticket | € 90.00

Synopsis

Fed up with the dreary round of life in Ballybeg, his uncommunicative father and his humiliating job at his father’s grocery shop, his frustrated love for Kathy Doogan who married a richer, more successful young man and with the total absence of prospect and opportunity in his life at home, Gareth O’Donnell has accepted his aunt’s invitation to come to Philadelphia.  On the eve of his departure, despite the fantasies Gareth entertains of life in America, all it would take to stop him leaving would be one word of affection from his father or Kathy, or a word of genuine understanding from his friends.

Synopsis

“Sive” is one of John B. Keane’s best-known plays and has been a favourite with audiences for many years.  Set against the harsh poverty and difficult period of 1950’s rural Ireland, it tells the story of a young and beautiful orphan girl who lives with her uncle Mike and his wife Mena and his mother Nora.  A local matchmaker, Thomasheen Sean Rua hatches a plan to marry Sive to an old man called Seán Dóta in exchange for money and the chance of a better life.  Sive, who is in love with a local young lad called Liam Scuab is distraught but forced to do the will of her uncle and his bitter wife.  Faced with an unthinkable future and despite help from the unlikeliest sources, she takes the only choice left to her.

Synopsis

Dr. Vivian Bearing is a renowned professor of English literature.  When she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Vivian undergoes aggressive experimental treatment, confronting the reality of her mortality with the same intellectual rigor she once applied to her scholarship.  As her illness progresses, she reflects on her life, her teaching and her emotional detachment, ultimately discovering the value of compassion and human connection over intellect and wit.  The play is both moving and darkly humorous, exploring themes of life, death and the search for meaning.

Synopsis

A “Wake in the West” tells the tale of the passing of a local villager, Tom Healy. Now that Tom has drunk himself to death, his family and friends pay their respects, plan his cremation and deal with visitors to the wake who want to have their own piece of him.

Synopsis

The Outgoing Tide” is a play by Bruce Graham about a retired trucker, Gunner, who is dealing with Alzheimer’s and a family crisis.  He is determined to end his life with dignity and enlists his wife Peg and son, Jack, to support a plan that will also provide for them financially.  The play explores the complex family dynamics, end-of-life choices and the ‘outgoing tide’ of aging, loss and mortality.

Synopsis

Mal and Máiréad are at a crossroads in their lives. They are struggling to keep their marriage together. Perhaps attending a wedding will help or it might raise questions that are difficult to answer. 

Synopsis

Ireland is on the verge of violent change. Two couples are on the verge of ending, a woman tries to save her family, a girl tries to save her future. Above it all, but in the midst of things, determining what happens next, is the loveliest and loneliest of all women, the great Garbo.  But when the Gods arrive, they can cause havoc, not least to themselves, as the divine Greta learns.

Synopsis

Trapped in a small town, two people pass the time by vividly inventing and performing the lives of an imagined town, using storytelling as a means of survival.  As the games grow darker, they are forced to confront mortality, authorship and the unspoken rule that one of them must remain.

Synopsis

A tragic play exploring guilt and moral responsibility in post-WWII America. Joe Keller, a manufacturer, is guilty of selling defective airplane parts that caused the deaths of 21 pilots. He avoided jail while his partner took the blame, but his son Chris and partner's daughter Ann eventually discover the truth. The play culminates in Joe’s suicide after realizing his surviving son, Larry, likely committed suicide in shame over the crime, prompting Joe to realize his responsibility for "all my sons".