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theatre · Monday 6 July 2026 · 8:00pm 
Barbarian
At Hawk's Well Theatre · Temple Street, Sligo, Co. Sligo
At Hawk's Well Theatre · Temple Street, Sligo, Co. Sligo
Barbarian is a physical theatre work by Bob Kelly and Diarmuid Armstrong that arrives at Hawk’s Well for two nights in early July as part of Cairde Sligo Arts Festival. It is not a conventional play with dialogue and set dressing - it is a movement-driven piece that uses bodies, presence and confrontation to explore masculinity, authority, childhood and generational trauma. Bob Kelly trained at the École Internationale de Jacques Lecoq in Paris, the school that shaped European physical theatre over the past half century, and his work has been described as a masterclass in that tradition. Diarmuid Armstrong is a dancer and choreographer who has worked with Liz Roche Company, CoisCéim and Irish Modern Dance Theatre. Together they have built something spare and visceral. This is the kind of work that theatre-goers remember for a long time, and 70 minutes is exactly the right length for it.
The piece runs 70 minutes without an interval. The staging strips back the usual layers of production and asks you to watch two performers work with space, weight and each other - the kind of theatre that reads across language barriers because it operates below language. The themes are not abstract: this is about the things men inherit from the men who raised them, about how authority passes itself down, about what gets called strength and what that costs. The production has backing from Cairde Sligo Arts Festival, Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo Arts Service and Blue Raincoat Theatre Company, which gives you a sense of the local and national weight behind it. The age rating is 12+.
Hawk’s Well Theatre sits on Temple Street in the town centre, a short walk from the main bus and rail connections. Sligo town is served by Bus Éireann routes from Dublin, Galway and Donegal, and by Irish Rail on the Dublin Connolly to Sligo line, which takes roughly three hours from the capital. If you are driving, the N4 from Dublin and the N15 from Donegal both bring you into the town centre. Street parking is available nearby in the evening, and there is a multi-storey car park on Quay Street a few minutes on foot from the theatre.
Sligo is a proper arts town - it has Cairde Arts Festival, a strong music scene and the W.B. Yeats connection that runs through everything here, from the County Museum on Stephen Street to the grave at Drumcliff a few miles north. There is more to see in Sligo and across Co. Sligo.
Heading to Hawk's Well Theatre in Sligo? Sligo has plenty more to see. Read the Sligo area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.