The texts of my Border Chronicles 1997 – 2007 trilogy are to be made available online from late July 2011 through the PLAYOGRAPHYIreland website.   The trilogy comprises Hades (premiered 1998); Epic (2001) and At Peace (2007).  Drawing from mythologies of Greece, Ireland, West Africa and the Baltic region, each of these plays was devised, written, and set within the year in which it was premiered.  As such, these dramas were an attempt to present a contemporaneous, live  chronicle of borderlands life as the major political events of a decade unfolded, while at the same time avoiding didactic realism by drawing from the surreal anarchy of ancient shapeshifting myth and lore.

PLAYOGRAPHYIreland comprises two comprehensive online searchable databases and catalogues: Irish Playography (all new Irish plays produced in English since the formation of the National Theatre in 1904) and Playography na Gaeilge (all new Irish plays produced in Irish since 1975).

PLAYOGRAPHYIreland not only defines the Irish theatrical repertoire for the first time but also aims to revitalise that repertoire by reintroducing many lost scripts and providing a gateway for locating and clearing rights for all existing scripts. As PLAYOGRAPHYIreland allows writers to attach downloadable versions of their plays to the database, it is also acts as an online script repository.

The texts of The Border Chronicles have not previously been published or available to a general readership.  From August 2011, they will be downloadable separately (or you can get them all!)  for a wee fee, along with a new reflective Afterword which I added on this year.  In the meantime, sample extracts can be read on this website and anyone wishing to read more can contact me at declangorman@yahoo.co.uk.