Mam and Love and Woo
Mam is worried her son is spending too much time alone. So worried in fact, she hasn’t left the house in six weeks. Their quiet lives are upended when a well-meaning community volunteer barrels into their world.
A tender and seriously funny new play about grief, love and survival.
★★★★ "Excellent and polished... exquisitely well-judged…Liam McCarthy’s Mam and Love and Woo, a funny and complicated portrait of a mother and son set against Limerick’s sobering suicide rate, flowed effortlessly, concealing its exposition behind superb dialogue, while at the same time unafraid of embellishment."
– Chris McCormack, Feeling Good
★★★★ "Wonderful performances and design... emotionally resonant and funny."
– Reviews Hub
Winner of the Fishamble New Writing Award at Dublin Fringe 2026, Mam and Love and Woo was also awarded the Wilde Irish Writer Award, and nominated for Best Ensemble, the First Fortnight Award, Best Production Management at Dublin Fringe.
Creative Team:
Writer – Liam McCarthy
Director – John King
Original Cast – Joan Sheehy, Liam Heslin and Martha Dunlea
Producer – Jenni Little
Lighting Design – Paul Keogan
Sound Design – Tom Lane
Production and Stage Management – Eloise Hickey
Assistant Stage Management – Laura O’Loughlin
Supported by Pavilion Theatre, Irish Theatre Institute, Axis Theatre and Lime Tree Theatre | Belltable
He Dies in the End
In the end we all become stories...
Matty’s dead, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. There’s no need to be sad, he says, sure he didn’t have much going for himself in the first place. He’s no big loss... Matty recounts his last day alive, over and over, telling us contradicting versions of a day in a life that was already falling apart. McCarthy’s irreverent story is about love and grief, and a young man making sense of his life on the day that he dies. He Dies in the End is a time-bending, funny and heartfelt piece of new writing, and a riff on time and potential.
“McCarthy has used the unlikely device of an accidental death to allow the deceased to reflect on the last day of his life. It is a challenging stratagem but with the fine acting of Yorke, the quality of the writing and the necessary comic input it works in spades.” - No More Workhorse
Premiered at Dublin Fringe Festival 2025 in Smock Alley Boys School and winner of the First Fortnight Award.
Creative Team:
Writer – Liam McCarthy
Performer – Darren Yorke
Producer – Jenni Little
Lighting Design – Emily Waters
Photo – Róisín White
Remount:
First Fortnight Festival 2026
Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party
After a sold-out premiere in Limerick, Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party, a darkly funny and emotionally charged new play, toured to leading venues across Ireland.
Written by Liam McCarthy and directed by Joan Sheehy, Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party follows Jack, whose brief, passionate kiss with Jilly Morgan at her birthday party in 1983 becomes a lifelong obsession. This fleeting but transformative moment shadows him through four decades of love, fantasy, and regret. Set against the backdrop of a changing Ireland, the play is a hauntingly humorous exploration of memory, desire, and the myths we build around ourselves.
Inspired by Anton Chekhov’s short story The Kiss, the production reimagines the original into a sharp, time-bending work that blends emotional honesty with inventive theatricality.
Premiering to ★★★★ reviews in The Irish Times and Feeling Good, audiences and critics praised the play’s raw truth, poignancy, and wit:
“Pivoting from laughs to darkness and back again. Extraordinary performances and beautiful writing.”
“Brilliant, powerful, moving and funny.”
Creative Team:
Writer – Liam McCarthy
Director – Joan Sheehy
Set & Lighting Design – Paul Keogan
Sound Design – Tom Lane
Costume Design – Gemma Morris
Dramaturg – Darren Murphy
Movement Consultant – Myles Breen
National Tour Venues:
Lime Tree Theatre Limerick, Pavilion Theatre Dún Laoghaire, Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo, Backstage Theatre Longford, Galway Town Hall Theatre, The Everyman Cork, glór Ennis, Siamsa Tíre Tralee, Dunamaise Arts Centre Portlaoise, Theatre Royal Waterford
Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party was presented by Lime Tree Theatre | Belltable with support from the The Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon
Boss Rob: A Masterclass for Aspiring Artists
Winner of the Judge’s Award for Innovation in Theatre from Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.
Proudly presenting as the world’s greatest ever artist in this exclusive, immersive, interactive, interdisciplinary experience…
Boss Rob may be surprised (if he ever arrives) to discover children amid his ‘aspiring artists’.
Combining spontaneous theatre, comedy, and a visual arts workshop, this show promotes fearless creativity and self-expression. Boss Rob’s Masterclass encourages children to take the lead. Playfully arming themselves against mean-spirited criticism in a hilarious battle of wits against a pompous artist, they may even help this old braggart to rediscover the joy in making art.
Suitable for children aged 8-12 and their families.
Creative Team:
Creators & Performers – Darren Yorke, Duffy Mooney Sheppard & Liam McCarthy
Selected Presentation Venues: Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Limerick City Gallery, Bualadh Bos Children’s Festival Limerick, Backstage Theatre, Samuel Beckett Theatre Dublin, Westival - Westport Music and Arts Festival
Follow Boss Rob on Instagram here.
This project was developed through a child participative process with schools in Dublin’s North East Inner City as part of Cruinniú na nÓg in 2023. Boss Rob received the Creative Hubs Performance Production Partnership Commission from Dublin City Council the following year.