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The Black & The Green Honoree: Donal O’Kelly

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

“Vive La” toured Ireland in 2007 and 2008. “Running Beast,” his music-theater piece with music by Michael Holohan, has toured Europe since September 2007. Other plays include “The Dogs,” “Hughie On The Wires,” “Trickledown Town,” “The Business Of Blood” (with Kenny Glenaan), “Operation Easter,” “Mamie Sighs,” “Judas Of The Gallarus” and “The Hand” (Dublin Theatre Festival 2002).
“Asylum! Asylum!,” his play about a Ugandan asylum-seeker in Dublin, was presented by the Abbey Theatre in 1994. In 1998, his music-theater piece “Farawayan,” about the experience of being vulnerable far away from home, toured Ireland. His long poem-with-music, “Direct Provision,” about the treatment of asylum-seekers in Ireland, was published by Comhlamh and has been performed many times in Ireland.
His play “The Cambria,” about Frederick Douglass’s voyage to Ireland in 1845, performed with Sorcha Fox, has toured Ireland, Liverpool and most recently played the Irish Arts Center in New York.
As an actor, O’Kelly’s film roles include leading roles in Roddy Doyle’s “The Van,” and in the bilingual film “Kings.” He also appeared for six months in the RTE drama serial “Fair City.” On stage, he has played Lincoln Center with Beckett’s “Act Without Words One”; at the Toronto Winter Garden as Lucky in the Gate production of “Waiting For Godot”; as Joxer in the Abbey Theatre’s “Juno And The Paycock,” and as Sean O’Casey in Colm Toibin’s “Beauty In A Broken Place” at the Peacock.
Three times, O’Kelly has been awarded an Irish Arts Council literature bursary, and in 1999 he was awarded the Irish American Cultural Institute Butler Literary Award. He is a member of the elected Irish arts academy Aosd_na, and is an associate director of the peace and justice organization Afri. He lives near Manorhamilton in north Leitrim.

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