To mark the digitisation of the Gate Theatre Archive, NUI Galway is announcing the launch of a new MA in Irish Theatre History and Archives  

Drama at NUI Galway was established in 2014 and currently offers two undergraduate programmes, five MA programmes, and part-time and full-time PhD programmes, including practice-based options. A new purpose-built Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance will open in September 2016. For more information on Drama at NUI Galway, please see www.nuigalway.ie/drama.

NUI Galway has one of the world’s leading archives of Irish theatre material, including the digital archive of the Abbey Theatre and the Gate Theatre, as well as the papers of Thomas Kilroy, Druid Theatre, John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy, 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.

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, and features a specialised archives-based internship.

To enquire about Drama programmes at NUI Galway please email patrick.lonergan@nuigalway.ie or charlotte.mcivor@nuigalway.ie