Welcome to Miriam Gallagher online

Miriam Gallagher,Irish playwright, novelist & screenwriter, was born in Waterford. She is married to the artist Gerhardt Gallagher. They live in Dublin. She studied Drama in London (LAMDA). Since 1983, over twenty plays have been performed in Ireland, Europe, Australia, USA & Canada. Her work is translated into Irish, Dutch, French, Finnish and Russian. Published books of Plays Fancy Footwork (Soc. Irish Playwrights, 1997, 2nd Ed.) 13 Plays including Shyllag, Dreamkeeper, Fancy Footwork, The Sealwoman and The Fisher, & Just Desserts. A book of 3 Plays: Kalahari Blues (Mirage, 2006) includes Midhir & the Firefly. A further 3 Plays: The Gold of Tradaree (Mirage, 2008) includes The Nude Who Painted Back, celebrating Suzanne Valadon (collaboration with Mia Gallagher & Nathalie Rafal) Miriam has also written theatrical/musical Interludes to celebrate Irish composers; Carolan, Field, Wallace, Balfe and Trimble.

Rté has broadcast her radio plays and her film Gypsies, screened at Irish Film Centre, Galway Film Fleadh, Foyle Film Festival, New York's Lincoln Center, Plaza cinemas, San Francisco & at International Children's Film Festival at Hyderabad, India. Her full length screenplay Girls in Silk Kimonos (celebrating the Gore Booth sisters) received Arts Council and European Script Fund Awards. Other awards include playwrighting awards, MHA Tv Script Award, EU Theatre award and a Writer's Exchange to Finland. She has presented work at Semaine Mondiale des Auteurs Vivants de Theatre in Marseilles and at the 5th International Women's Playwrights Conference in Athens & Delphi.

Author of Fancy Footwork (Selected plays) and Let's Help Our children Talk (non fiction), her published fiction includes Pusakis at Paros [short stories] (2008, Trafford, Canada)and a novel, Song for Salamander (2004, Trafford, Canada), launched at Dublin's United Arts Club by Macdara Woods, a leading Irish poet, who called it 'a paradigm for our times.' Her short stories are published in anthologies of Irish Writing and internationally in literary journals.

She has given scriptwriting courses for Rté Training Unit, An Creagán Centre, Omagh, Mountjoy & Arbour Hill Prisons and has worked in professional, prison & community theatre. The Ring of Mont de Balison, was performed by professional and community actors, young and old. (commission for Ranelagh Millennium Project), The Gold of Tradaree (Per Cent for Arts Award) was performed by Clare community actors and Fancy Footwork, (commission for 1983 Dublin Theatre Festival), was performed by Mountjoy Prisoners at Focus Theatre, Dublin: a unique occasion, being the only time in the history of the State that prisoners were released to perform in a professional theatre.

A member of Irish PEN, Miriam has served on its committee and as vice president. She has also served on the Irish Writers Union committee, as a council member of the Society of Irish Playwrights and judge for the O.Z. Whitehead Play Competition and on the Awards Panel for Arts & Disability Forum. She has been a visiting lecturer at universities in Dublin, Galway, Athens, New York, Boston & Pretoria.

Her Mss are in the National Library and film work in the Irish Film Archive.