Welcome to Miriam Gallagher online

Miriam Gallagher,Irish playwright, novelist & screenwriter, was born in Waterford. She was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary and Bregenz, Austria. She is married to the artist Gerhardt Gallagher. They live in Dublin. She studied Drama in London (LAMDA). Her work, staged & screened in Ireland, London, Paris, Zurich, Helsinki, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia & The Philippines with Irish, Dutch, French, Finnish and Russian translations, is included in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing and profiled in Irish Women Writers: An A-Z Guide (Greenwood Press, CT, USA, 2006) and in Irish Women Writers: New Critical Perspectives (Peter Lang, Bern, 2011).

Published 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). Four Interludes to celebrate Irish composers; Carolan, Field, Wallace, Balfe and Joan Trimble, which are published in Green Rain~ Irish Composers on Stage (Mirage, 2011). A further 3 Plays: A Wasteland Harvest (Mirage, 2014)

Her published fiction includes a short story collection: Pusakis at Paros & Other Stories (Trafford 2008), and a novel, Song for Salamander (2004, Trafford), 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 internationally and in anthologies of Irish Writing.

She has also written commissioned essays for The Irish Times, Irish Medical Times, film, literary, arts & educational journals, including World Literature Today, Learn, Entertainer, and Epona.

Miriam has worked in France & Crete as an Au Pair, in Switzerland at the Pestalozzi Children’s Village, and in Cavendish Square, London as a Montessori Assistant. She studied at the University of London and University College, Dublin. As a Licentiate of the London College of Speech Therapists, she has practised in Dublin hospitals & clinics, combining this with her writing career. A founder member and former chairman of the Irish Association of Speech & Language Therapists, her book, Let’s Help Our Children Talk (1977, O’Brien Press) came out in several editions and is translated into Dutch. She has lectured at University College Dublin (post graduate Special Education) and at the Royal Victoria Eye & Ear Hospital (post graduate ENT Nursing).

Her work has been broadcast by Rté Radio & television and by BBC Radio. Her film Gypsies, broadcast by Rté, also screened at the Irish Film Centre, Galway Film Fleadh, Foyle Film Festival, Cinemagic, Belfast, 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 MHA Tv Script Award, EU Theatre award and a Writer's Exchange to Finland. In 2006 The Parting Glass was a prizewinner of an international playwrighting competition and Doracha Mór agus Seoltóirí Ghaoth Dobhair won best script in 2008. She has presented work at Semaine Mondiale des Auteurs Vivants de Théâtre in Marseilles and at the 4th & 5th International Women's Playwrights Conference in Athens & Galway.

Miriam has given scriptwriting courses for Rté Training Unit, An Creagán Centre, Omagh, Mountjoy & Arbour Hill Prisons and has worked in professional, prison & community theatre. Commissions include The Ring of Mont de Balison (Ranelagh Millennium Project); Kalahari Blues (Galloglass Theatre Co); The Gold of Tradaree (Clare Co. Council & first play commissioned under the Per Cent for Arts Scheme) The Mighty Oak of Riverwood (Betty Ann Norton Theatre School 40 years celebration) performed at the Gate Theatre and Fancy Footwork (Dublin Theatre Festival) 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. This play was professionally staged in London, Chicago, Milwaukee and Off-Off Broadway for 2009 New York International Fringe Festival.

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.