MA/PGDip (Irish Drama and Theatre)

Course details

NUI Galway has one of the world’s leading archives of Irish theatre material, including the digital archive of the Abbey Theatre, as well as the papers of Thomas Kilroy, Druid Theatre, the Lyric Players’ Theatre, and many more.

Students on this course will have unprecedented access to these materials – almost all of them unavailable anywhere else – to learn about such major Irish writers as W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, G.B. Shaw, Lady Gregory, Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett, Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Thomas Kilroy, Marina Carr, Martin McDonagh, Enda Walsh, and many others.

We will read these writers’ plays and discuss the historical staging of their work. And students on this programme will be able to access archival material relating to these authors – including videos of performances, original promptbooks, correspondence, drafts of plays, and so on. The course thus provides students with exciting and unique ways to explore the history and practice of Irish theatre.

The course is ideally suited to anyone with an interest in Irish drama and theatre. It provides skills in research and archiving and will thus be of special interest to anyone interested in PhD research on Irish drama – yet it is also very well suited to people with a general interest in Irish drama who wish to develop their knowledge further. It also has practical components, and will involve attendance at theatres in Galway and Dublin. Students will also be able to benefit from the university’s partnerships with the Abbey Theatre and Druid.

Key facts

Entry requirements

The programme is intended for graduates with at least a university arts degree (minimum standard H2.2 or GPA 3.0). Applicants who do not meet the minimum entry requirements may be admitted via a qualifying exam if they have relevant professioinal experience, or be admitted to the PDip.

Students who do not meet the Honours degree requirement but have a Level 7 degree (Merit 2) may be admitted to the PDip course with the possibility of progressing to the MA if they receive a minimum of 60% in their course work.

Course outline

All students take the following four courses, each worth 10 ECTs.

• Irish Drama and Theatre from Wilde to O'Casey
• Irish Drama and Theatre from Beckett to the Present
• The Abbey Theatre Digital Archive
• Druid Theatre in History and Practice

Students then choose two further modules from the following list:

• Writing about Theatre and Performance
• Theatre Theory
• Irish Theatre in Practice
• Reviewing Theatre in Ireland

All students also complete a minor dissertaion, worth 30 ECTs, on a topic of their choice related to Irish drama.