We welcome to Cork our Speech and Drama Adjudicator Bairbre Ní Chaoimh:
Bairbre is an award-winning actor, director and writer. She has worked extensively on stage, film, TV and radio and has toured nationally and internationally with all the major Irish theatre companies. She was an Associate Artist at The Abbey Theatre and while Artistic Director of Calypso Productions she received Irish Times and MAMA awards for her directorial work.
She made her acting debut at The Abbey Theatre in Galileo and had performed in many plays there including: The Picture Of Dorian Gray, The King Of Friday’s Men, The Sanctuary Lamp, Ulysses In Nighttown, Deoraíocht, The Shaughraun, Drama At Inish, The Far Off Hills, Cúirt An Mheánoíche, Candide and Scéal Scéalaí. Appearances at The Gate include: Private Lives, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Rivals, Come And Go and Salome. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for roles in Druid Theatre productions of The Shaughraun and The Playboy Of The Western World and for an Abbey Theatre production of Drama At Inish. She performed in several shows with ANU, including Basin (Blessington Basin) Laundry (Sean Mc Dermott Street Magdalene Laundry), which won the Irish Times Best Production award and Thirteen (Liberty Hall), which won the Irish Times Judges’ Special Award. Other companies she enjoyed working with include Rough Magic, Fishamble, Amharclann de h-Íde, Storytellers, The London Stage Co, An Taibhdhearc, Aisling Ghéar, Mirari, Mouth On Fire, The Curious Ensemble and CTC. Favourite roles include Mrs. Bunch in Lost Hearts, Maura in Maura Laverty – This Was Your Life, Storyteller/Puppeteer in The Selfish Giant, Aunt Bee in Big My Aunt Bee and Mrs. Brennan in Speckintime’s production of Dáil 100 in Leinster House.
Recent film and TV roles include Bean Uí Riain in Claonadh, Meryl in The Dry, Professor Noonan in With Love From Aidan and Aisling in An Crann/The Tree (for which she won an Actor’s Craft Award in New York at the First Run Film Festival). A few other credits include Washed Up Love, Val Falvey TD, Glenroe, Scúp, Fair City, Angela’s Ashes, Corp Agus Anam, Aifric, Paddywhackery, Na Fíor Ghaeil, Friends For Life, Aristocrats, Falling For A Dancer, The Pearse Sisters, Finbar’s Class, Frankie Starlight, August Saturday, The Real Charlotte, The Playboy Of The Western Word, Lovers Of The Lake, Les Poneys Sauvages, The Fantasist, The Outcasts, Caught In A Free State, The Orange And The Green, Cúirt An Mheanoíche, Rawhead Rex and Hamlet And Her Brothers.
Plays she directed which have won Irish and international awards include Catalpa by Donal O’Kelly, Act Without Words ll, Play and Come And Go by Samuel Beckett and Charolais by Noni Stapleton.
She has co-written two plays with Yvonne Quinn – Stolen Child and Maura Laverty – This Was Your Life and is currently writing a play about Kitty Kiernan and her sisters called Four Wedding Dresses And A Funeral Coat.
Bairbre has also worked on radio for RTE, BBC and Near FM. She and Yvonne Quinn co-wrote a radio version of their stage play Maura Laverty – This Was Your Life for RTE and it received a Zebbie award in 2022.