← All events
theatre · Wednesday 24 June 2026 · See website for times 
My Real Life
At Lime Tree Theatre · Mary Immaculate College, Courtbrack Avenue, Limerick
At Lime Tree Theatre · Mary Immaculate College, Courtbrack Avenue, Limerick
Eoin Colfer is best known for writing Artemis Fowl, but this is a very different kind of story. My Real Life is a blackly comic, deeply moving one-man play written after director Ben Barnes asked Colfer for a short theatre piece back in 2013. The result toured Ireland, Paris, Edinburgh and New York for the best part of five years - and it is back on the road with a new cast for 2026. If you want an hour of theatre that packs real emotional weight while still making you laugh, this is worth the trip to the Lime Tree.
The play follows Noel, an ordinary Wexford man who has been diagnosed with MS. He sits down to record his thoughts for a friend - something that can be used as “a bit of a speech for the afters.” The afters in question are his own funeral. Over roughly an hour, Noel revisits forty years of life - the highs, the losses, the love - with frankness and a dark humour that keeps grief from turning maudlin.
Garrett Lombard plays Noel. He is one of the busier Irish actors working right now, with stage credits at the Abbey and Druid theatres and screen roles in Pure Mule, Quirke opposite Gabriel Byrne, and Oliver Stone’s Alexander. He last worked with Four Rivers Theatre on Jim Nolan’s Castel Gandolfo in 2024, which sold out quickly. The production is directed by Heather Hadrill, whose recent credits include Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Wexford Festival Opera.
Reviews from earlier in the tour called it “a surprisingly enthralling evening laden with as much humour as pathos” and said it was “filled with joy and laughter” - not phrases you might expect from a play about a terminal diagnosis, but they fit.
The Lime Tree Theatre sits on the campus of Mary Immaculate College on Courtbrack Avenue, off the South Circular Road in Limerick city. Parking is available on campus. From the city centre it is a ten-minute walk or a short taxi ride. Limerick is well served by Bus Eireann and intercity coaches from Dublin, Cork, Galway and Waterford, all arriving into Colbert Station, which is about 20 minutes on foot from the theatre. If you are coming by train, Limerick Junction connects to the mainline, with onward services into the city.
Limerick is in good shape as a city to spend a few hours before a show - King John’s Castle is a short walk from the river, and the streets around the Milk Market have plenty of options for food and coffee. There is more to see in Limerick and across Co. Limerick.
Heading to Lime Tree Theatre in Limerick? Limerick has plenty more to see. Read the Limerick area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.