Renowned Irish playwright will visit Tipperary for community fundraiser

Award-winning writer, director and actor Seamus O’Rourke will perform in Lorrha later this month as part of a fundraising drama event for the SCEAL community group.

The Leitrim-based playwright will be in the north Tipperary village on Saturday, November 19, to perform his new play, The Handyman. The event takes place at St Ruadhan’s Hall in Lorrha at 8pm and tickets can be booked now.

The one-man show has been described as “poetic, chaotic and funny”, and sees Seamus O’Rourke’s most recent creation, Hugh Spotten, pull asunder his rural Irish life. He was the man who got things done – caretaker, tea maker and gravedigger (with his own crowbar). But now, that’s all about to be taken away.

Seamus has been a full-time playwright and actor for the last decade, after initially working on the family farm, and as a carpenter. He has over two million hits on YouTube and social media with his short stories, recitations and sketches, and regularly features on RTE Radio One’s Country Wide porogramme.

He has written a long list of plays including Ride On, Dig, Down and The Trappe Family. He has directed with The Corn Mill Theatre, Backstage Theatre, Moth Productions and his own company, Big Guerilla Productions. His acting career has also seen him win Best Actor at the 2010 RTE All-Ireland Amateur Drama Finals, among many other accolades.

Seamus’s visit to Lorrha is a fundraiser for SCEAL (Social Community Enterprise for the Advancement of Lorrha/Rathcabbin). Established in 2016 in response to the closure of the last shop in the village, the voluntary group has evolved over the last six years to manage a seven-day per week community shop in St Ruadhán’s Hall, and to promote the cultural and historical background of the parish.

SCEAL is in the process of building a new permanent home for the shop, adjoining the parish hall. Construction challenges have hampered progress however, and fundraising efforts are continuing to keep the project on track.

Around 150 tickets (€15 each) are available for the production on November 19 (curtain up at 8pm), and they can be booked via:

-          Patrick Cahalan – 087-6962490

-          Nancy White – 087-7613458

-          At the SCEAL shop in Lorrha.