Draiocht Competitors

The Abbey Theatre is Ireland's National Theatre. The Abbey Theatre, founded by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, first opened its doors in 1904 to ‘bring upon the stage the deeper thoughts and emotions of Ireland’. Since then, it has played a vital and often controversial role in the literary, social and cultural life and landscape of Ireland. The Abbey’s reputation for presenting world-class productions has made it an ambassador for Irish arts and culture at home and abroad.

For 146 years The Gaiety Theatre has given the people of Dublin opera, musicals, drama, revues, comedy, concerts, dance, festivals and pantomime. Amid the laughter and tears, through times of war and times of affluence, The Grand Old Lady of South King Street has remained a vital and ever changing expression of Irish culture and Irish society. Long home to the familiar faces of Maureen Potter, Niall Toibin, John B. Keane, Anna Manahan, Des Keogh and Rosaleen Linehan, whose bronze handprints, are set into the pavement in front the theatre, together with those of Luciano Pavarotti and Brian Friel, are testament to the longstanding association these great artists have had with Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre.

Smock Alley was the first Theatre Royal built in Dublin. John Ogilby opened it in 1662 as part of the Restoration of the British monarchy and King Charles II in 1660, along with the London’s Drury Lane (1662) and the Lincoln’s Inn Fields (1661). It was the first custom-built theatre in the city and still remains in substantially the same form, making it one of the most important sites in European theatre history. Smock Alley was the first theatre outside London to receive the title of Theatre Royal, but because it had been built on land reclaimed from the Liffey, the building was unstable and the gallery collapsed twice; it was rebuilt in 1735. In the mid-1740s, Thomas Sheridan took on the role of manager of Smock Alley and made many improvements to it. While it was in operation as a theatre, it gave the world the plays of George Farquhar, Oliver Goldsmith, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the brilliant performances of Peg Woffington, Thomas Sheridan, Spranger Barry, and Charles Macklin. It was on this stage that David Garrick, the greatest actor of the 18th century, first played Hamlet. The theatre closed in 1787. The building was then used as a whiskey store until Father Michael Blake bought it to set a church. When the bell tolled in 1811, 18 years before the Catholic Emancipation, the first Catholic bell to ring in Dublin in nearly 300 years was heard. In 1989, the church was deconsecrated due to falling numbers of parishioners. It was then redeveloped into the ‘Viking Adventure,’ as part of the Temple Bar rejuvenation scheme, closing down in 2002. After a six-year renovation, Smock Alley Theatre reopened its doors as Dublin’s oldest newest theatre in May 2012. With three gorgeous venues, Smock Alley is the perfect place to spend a cultural evening out.