CloudNine

The cast of THE NATURALISTS: Michael Mellamphy, Tim Ruddy,  John Keating, Sarah Street In the middle of this year I was contacted by New York’s Pond Theatre Company. I had sent the directors of this group some plays of mine and in the previous year they had staged two readings – Belfast Girls and Leopoldville. They had also staged some scenes from the all-female version of Leopoldville -  a piece I’m still currently working on - and earlier this year read this work back-to-back with the all-male original version. But the play they were contacting me about this summer was an earlier play, The Naturalists – and they wanted to stage the World Premiere in September! Of course I said yes! I wrote The Naturalists in 2009 and it had a staged reading at the Flat Lake Festival in Monaghan in 2010, directed by Padraic McIntyre of Livin’ Dred Theatre Company. That reading went well but because I'd overheard a producer who we’d invited to see the play, someone who m...

Returning from London, where my parents had lived for seventeen years, my family were in Ireland only a couple of years when the bombing of eighteen soldiers took place at Narrow Water, near Warrenpoint, a few miles from where we lived – and where I still live - in Dundalk. I don’t remember this terrible event, which occurred on August 27 th  1979. Most of the press attention at the time went to another IRA atrocity that had taken place on the same day: the bombing of a boat in Mullaghmore, Sligo, which killed its passengers – Earl Mountbatten and two crew members. I do remember  that  event being on the news. The death of the 18 soldiers was pretty much overshadowed at the time by the death of a British royal. It is the Narrow Water atrocity that forms the backdrop to my play,  The Naturalists , which is about to receive its world premiere in New York, presented by the Pond Theatre Company. According to Tim Pat Coogan, the Narrow Wate...

Reviews of BELFAST GIRLS by Jaki McCarrick Samuel French:  https://www.samuelfrench.co.uk/p/58614/belfast-girls Agency News:  h ttp://www.knighthallagency.com/jaki-mccarricks-award-winning-play-belfast-girls-will-be-in-kansas-city-missouri-from-7-29-april/ BELFAST GIRL PORTLAND OREGON, 2017 Dennis Sparks Sparks Reviews by Dennis Sparks 11/20/17 https://dennissparksreviews.blogspot.com/2017/11/belfast-girlscorrib-theatrese-portland.html “McCarrick has written a powerful play of the endurance of the human spirit.” “Whelan has beautifully balanced the wide stage…” “…the whole cast is first-rate, one of the best ensembles I’ve seen!” BroadwayWorld.com by Krista Garver 11/21/17 https://www.broadwayworld.com/portland/article/BWW-Review-Corrib-Theatres-BELFAST-GIRLS-is-Full-of-Fascinating-History-Could-Use-More-Emotion-201711 21 “It's a fascinating history - one I hadn't heard before - and McCarrick'...

2018 is set to be a busy year for me. I'm currently finalising the screenplay of Belfast Girls and also writing a short film. I'm still editing my novel and collating my second story collection. And I've two new plays that I'm hoping to stage 2018/19: The Naturalists and Bohemians. Both of these plays  received excellent readings in the UK in 2017. I've  also been commissioned to write a new play - a full-length development of my short play, TUSSY, about Eleanor Marx. There are two productions of Belfast Girls this year, too: in Kansas City, Missouri and Australia - and a reading in New York of the female version of my award-winning play, Leopoldville.  Wishing you all a fantastic 2018 & thanks for supporting my work.