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theatre · Saturday 12 September 2026 · 8:00pm 
Dancing at Lughnasa by the Ballaghaderreen Players
At Roscommon Arts Centre · Circular Road, Roscommon, Co. Roscommon
At Roscommon Arts Centre · Circular Road, Roscommon, Co. Roscommon
The Ballaghaderreen Players bring Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa to Roscommon Arts Centre on Saturday, 12 September 2026 at 8pm, one stop on a short tour that has already taken the production to St Nathy’s College in Ballaghaderreen as part of that town’s arts festival and to Backstage Theatre in Longford. Widely regarded as one of the great works of modern Irish theatre, the play gets a home county outing here from a company with deep local roots.
Set in the fictional Ballybeg, Co. Donegal, in August 1936, the play is narrated by the adult Michael Evans looking back on a single summer of his childhood, staying with his five aunts, the Mundy sisters, in the weeks around the pagan harvest festival of Lughnasa. Friel weaves together family, faith, poverty and the arrival of industrial change in rural Ireland, all filtered through memory, building to a moment of unrestrained dance that has become the play’s best-known scene. The Ballaghaderreen Players reformed in 2023 under director Julie Sharkey, timed to coincide with the first Ballaghaderreen Arts Festival, and have since staged Big Maggie, The Cripple of Inishmaan and The Field. Sharkey also wrote and directed Betrothed, the immersive King House drama staged during Boyle Arts Festival, so this production carries the same director’s hand across two of the county’s more ambitious theatre projects this year.
Roscommon Arts Centre is on Circular Road in Roscommon town, a short walk from the town centre and the train station. Roscommon is served by Iarnrod Eireann’s Dublin-Westport/Galway line, and Bus Eireann routes connect the town to Athlone, Galway and Sligo.
A home county performance from a Ballaghaderreen company is worth the trip into Roscommon town on its own, and the arts centre sits close enough to the centre for a bite to eat before curtain. There is more to see in Roscommon and across Co. Roscommon.
Heading to Roscommon Arts Centre in Roscommon? Roscommon has plenty more to see. Read the Roscommon area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.