Our History

The Sligo Drama Circle was founded in October 1956 to promote good standards of community theatre and increase the range of plays available to Sligo audiences. The first play was produced in November 1956 and since then, the Circle has produced the works of major Irish, European and American playwrights. The group has won awards all over Ireland including the three “majors” – the Ulster Drama Cup in May 1967 at the Opera House, Belfast with J. M. Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World”; the All-Ireland Esso Trophy in April 1970 with Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire”; the All-Ireland One Act Play section in Naas in 1972 with “The Pot of Broth” by W. B. Yeats. The Circle also achieved an excellent second place in the All-Ireland with its first production of “Thy Dear Father”. Apart from the great win in 1970, the Drama Circle has reached the All-Ireland final nine times, has been second on three occasions and third twice. The Circle has also had a long association with the Sligo Yeats Society, performing the plays of W. B. Yeats and other writers of the Irish Literary Renaissance at the Summer School from 1966 to the early 1990’s.

After an early itinerant existence, the Circle rented a small store in the Market Yard in 1966. This provided a homely atmosphere for rehearsals and storage space. New activities were then introduced – play readings, socials and even an art exhibition. With the help and co-operation of both the North-Western Regional Tourism Organisation and the Sligo Yeats Society the Drama Circle was enabled for some years to present summer theatre in Sligo which typically ran from June to mid-September. The late sixties and seventies were quite productive years in this respect.

It then became quite apparent to the Drama Circle that their work was severely handicapped for want of a permanent theatre. While the available halls in Sligo were adequate for the presentation of plays, the lack of a properly equipped theatre made rehearsal and experimental work very difficult. For this reason, in 1970 the group launched a “Theatre For Sligo” project which sought to provide a properly equipped and professionally run theatre for both players and audiences in Sligo. In February 1974, Bishop Dominic Conway announced his intention to present a site on Temple Street to the Drama Circle for the purpose of building a new theatre. This was a huge step forward for the Drama Circle. Much fund-raising was done and profit from summer seasons went towards this visionary project. This eventually came to a successful conclusion in January 1982 with the opening of the Hawk’s Well Theatre, on a site shared with Donegal – Sligo – Leitrim Tourism. The theatre was named after the play by W. B. Yeats which has been produced many times by the Circle. In the programme notes of our March 1982 show we made the following comment:

“We hope that the Sligo Drama Circle and the Hawk’s Well Theatre will have a long and happy association and that the words of Yeats about his own Hawk’s Well be prophetically true – ‘He who drinks, they say, of that miraculous water lives forever’ “.

Plays have been presented by the Drama Circle in the Town Hall, The Hawk’s Well Theatre, The Factory Performance Space, Holy Cross Friary, Fr. Flanagan Hall (Summerhill College), Scoil Ursula, the Gillooly Hall, upstairs in Beezies (lunch-time theatre) and, of course, in the Drama Circle’s new rehearsal/performance space in the Market Yard.

For many years, the Circle also made a special effort to produce one of the plays on the Leaving Certificate curriculum for secondary school students. This gave the students an opportunity to see a play transform from simple words on a page to living words on the stage. Such productions included “The Playboy of the Western World”,”Juno and the Paycock” and “The Plough and the Stars”.