The Playwright on the Stairs

Dr. Barry Houlihan's talk will explore recent projects at University of Galway Library focused on archives of Irish women writers and their networks, creative work, and contribution to wider 20th century Irish culture through theatre, film, literature and also activism and politics. The lives and work of these figures, including Carolyn Swift, Lelia Doolan, Mary O'Malley, and Genevieve Lyons, as well as other contemporary Irish artists have been marginalised and uncollected within the wider record of 20th century Ireland. Efforts were made to correct the gendered and unbalanced record of Irish culture through the accessioning, cataloguing, exhibition, and digitisation of key material to showcase and share the lives and work of these individuals. Added archive contextualisation by recording of oral history has also proved to be a powerful asset in enabling greater agency through speaking directly onto the record, giving voice to otherwise often silent archives.

Dr. Barry Houlihan is an Archivist at University of Galway. He is the editor and author of a number of books on Irish literary and theatre archives and heritage, including Druid Theatre 1975-2025: 50 Years of New Irish Plays (Methuen, 2025) and the monograph Theatre and Archival Memory: Irish Drama and Marginalised Histories 1951 - 1977 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021). Recent collection projects and exhibitions include the archive of Druid Theatre, the Galway International Arts Festival Oral History archive, and a number of collections relating to conflict and peace in Northern Ireland. Barry is the editor of Irish Archives journal and is a regular contributor to RTÉ Brainstorm and Irish media on topics of arts, culture, and heritage.