About the Play:

Our Lady of Sligo has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male Monologues.

Our Lady of Sligo is a full-length drama by Sebastian Barry. Tells the compelling story of Mai O'Hara and her flamboyant but destructive relationship with husband Jack, daughter Joanie and the lost country of her childhood. Fuelled by alcohol, passion and despair, Our Lady of Sligo is a story of a certain class in Ireland that expected more than it got from independence and self-rule.

Our Lady of Sligo is a compelling work based on the life of Sebastian Barry's grandmother Mai O'Hara, one of the early female graduates of University College Galway. From her hospital bed in 1950's Dublin, Mai O'Hara recalls her life through morphine-induced memories and hallucinations. Dying of liver cancer caused by alcoholism, Mai reminisces on her youthful promise as a member of the Galway bourgeoisie; the death of one of her children; and of the marriage fuelled by liquor, bickering, and remorse, to her husband, Jack – who visits her on occasion as does her daughter, Joanie. Jack's visits to her bedside are a testament to the mutual hatred they share and the mutual dependence they have on each other. Through it all, Mai uses her mordant wit and vanity to pull her out of painful realizations. Once the first woman in Sligo to wear trousers, Mai emerges not only the victim of a broken marriage but a victim of an Ireland in which the Catholic middle-class has been nullified by spiritual and political isolation after the Civil War.

Our Lady of Sligo premiered in 1998 at the Royal National Theatre in London. The production was widely praised and was revived in 2000 off-Broadway for an extended run at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York.

Cast: 5 female, 2 male

What people say:

"Barry is one of the new generation of astonishingly good young Irish dramatists who make the modish in-your-face school of English theatrical shock merchants seem almost pathetically exhibitionist and callow." — Daily Telegraph (London)

"Barry…is a first rate theatrical poet: Every phrase is brushed with eloquence." — The Guardian (UK)

"Sebastian Barry's new play takes place at the barren and busy crossroads between life and death, duty and resentment, belonging and loneliness, love and hate…Barry understands how intensely aware people are, in nations with a history of oppression and exploitation, that they carry the burden of their race." — Sunday Times (London)

"Cerebral and lyrical, he is the new crown prince of Ireland's majestic theatrical tradition." — Newsweek

"Sebastian Barry's play transcends geography. It's universal ... The writing is transcendent and the language rich, but underlying all is the deep and utterly complex humanity of these damaged, difficult and thus eventually familiar people.." — Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

About the Playwright:

Sebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. He was educated at Trinity College in Dublin and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers.