Belfast Girls

An award-winning feminist play based on a true piece of largely untold Irish history Jaki McCarrick’s Belfast Girls follows the story of five fierce young Irish women aboard the Inchinnan travelling from Belfast to Australia during the Famine in the desperate hope of a new life abroad. But the further from home they voyage the more each of them comes to realise they cannot escape their pasts, nor the seemingly universal subjugation of their gender. Over the long ship journey the women form intense bonds, and life-changing secrets are revealed, personal and political.
We presented the Irish premiere in 2024, this is a new production under the direction of Rhiann Jeffrey.

Belfast Girls is written by Jaki McCarrick, an award-winning writer from Dundalk. The play was developed at the National Theatre London and was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the 2014 BBC Tony Doyle Award. It premiered in Chicago in May 2015 to much critical acclaim and has since been staged widely internationally, with recent premieres in Australia, Sweden and New York. Jaki has recently completed the screen adaptation of the play.

Critics:
“The actors are in their stride and each gives an accomplished and compelling performance. McCarrick holds up a mirror and forces her audience to bear witness, not only to this grim and bleak aspect of our past but to what famine victims, refugees, emigrants and immigrants endure to this day”. The Reviews Hub

"Grounded in outlook, dominant in performance and intricate in writing... an altogether remarkable accomplishment." - Arts NI

“A superb Fiona Keenan O’Brien as the will of iron, and an outstanding Leah Rossiter as the brash, loudmouth, whiskey swilling Hanna…with Rossiter announcing herself as a serious talent.” - The Reviews Hub

Audience reactions:
"Enthralling, moving and hilarious"
"This was one of the best plays I've ever seen"
"Powerful and beautiful writing”
"[A] fierce performance...we loved every second of it...one of those nights at the theatre to remember"