A native of County Kerry, Druid Theatre's Chief Executive Officer Maureen Kennelly has held leadership positions in several important Irish arts organisations, including Kilkenny Arts Festival, Mermaid Arts Centre, Poetry Ireland and the Arts Council.
Following sold-out runs in 2025, Druid's acclaimed 50th anniversary production of Macbeth returns this spring for a three-city tour, with dates in Galway, Belfast and Limerick.
We asked Maureen for her choice cultural picks...
FILM
Oh how proud it makes me to see not just the brilliance of Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in Hamnet, but really fine performances too from Irish actors Justine Mitchell, David Wilmot and Louisa Harland.
MUSIC
A recent gig at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway flooded me with memories of Mary Coughlan performing in a sweaty Atlantic Ballroom in Ballybunion, back in the 80s. She's still in glorious voice and it’s so great to be reminded of the staying power of all those terrific original songs.
BOOK
It’s been a fortnight filled with launches including Mary Costello’s A Beautiful Loan and Contentious Spaces by Rosaleen McDonagh – I’m fairly certain that I’m going to love both these books.
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THEATRE
The consistently brilliant Brokentalkers are reviving their production Bellow for a national tour. It fascinated me for how it mixes traditional music, sound design and contemporary theatre and dance to such beguiling effect.
TV
I loved Obituary, for the sharpness of the writing and what seemed to me a convincing portrayal of a regional newspaper environment.
GIG
Last gig was Vona Groarke’s brilliant first lecture as Ireland Professor of Poetry – a packed lecture theatre in Trinity listened to her speak about the relationship that poets and poems have with loneliness.
Any hour that contains this sort of thinking sets it squarely in rock star territory:
'It’s always the problem in a poem, what to do with feeling; how to smuggle it out of the body, into the body of the poem’.
Vona will be reading from her work on April 9th at MoLi.
Also: It hardly needs saying that Patti Smith at Galway International Arts Festival in July will be sublime.
ART
How utterly right it is that artist Dorothy Cross was awarded the honour of Saoi - her recent interview with Brendan O’Connor was riveting.
RADIO
Slightly out of season but I recently came across Colm Tóibin’s reading of his piece Christmas Pudding (listen from 30:00 below) which is hilarious.
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TECH
Bainim an taitneamh as an app teanglann.ie – tá sé an úsáideach ar fad!
THE NEXT BIG THING...
If there is any justice, it should be wonderful Kevin Doherty, singer and songwriter supreme, and his band Telegraph – mystifyingly, they’re a bit of a secret. Now that they’re gigging again after a hiatus, hopefully that will change.
Druid Theatre's Macbeth is at Galway's Black Box Theatre from 25 March - 5 April, Belfast's Lyric Theatre from 16 - 19 April and Limerick's Lime Tree Theatre from 23 - 25 April 2026 - find out more here
