Welcome to the “News & Views” section of the website. This is a selective Table of Contents – in reverse order – of my very occasional blogs/essays going back to 2011 when I first set up this website. None of the articles have been edited since they were first published, so they represent shifting viewpoints over a decade and a half. I have linked mainly to opinion pieces and personal essays (omitting certain out-of-date PR announcements). Some articles are short, others quite long. Enjoy!
NOTE: For the more recent essays, click the box containing the title to read. For the older ones just click the link.
THESE ESSAYS OPEN IN ‘THE SAME TAB’, SO TO MOVE FROM ONE ARTICLE TO ANOTHER AFTER READING, YOU NEED TO USE THE BACK ARROW (TOP LEFT OF SCREEN) TO RETURN TO THIS TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Declan Gorman 2026
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ: Re-published from one of the last ever editions of the great local newspaper The Northern Standard – this is the journalist’s largely verbatim summary of my keynote paper at the 2025 Patrick Kavanagh Weekend. The paper was in memory of the late Seán Rocks, broadcaster, actor and old friend.
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ: The second (and longer) of two articles in one week on the messed up system of arts funding in Ireland. This one sets out some solutions. February 28, 2025
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ: The first and shorter of two essays in one week triggered by a much-hyped overspend (or misspend) of public arts money on a failed IT system – a scandal that generated a lot of hot air in the media – the same media that almost never reports on the true financial scandal in the arts: the one whereby underpaid or unpaid artists subsidise the nation’s culture while the State basks in the refracted glory of it all. 24/02/2025
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ: An unashamedly joyful and sentimental travel journal about a short tour in Canada for Bloomsday 2024. June 27, 2024
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ: Having concluded a piece of theatre based on Frank O’Connor’s biography of his erstwhile enemy Michael Collins, and while still immersed in a work based on writings by another of Collins’ enemies, Dorothy MacArdle, I wrote this short reflection on the occasion of the centenary of The Big Fellow’s’ assasination.
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ: Not typical of these pages, this is a political opinion piece without any artistic context really, about the state of things in Northern Ireland as I perceived them five years after the disaster of Brexit. Published on
CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ: Celebrating an innovative project undertaken with a community drama group in Cavan during Covid – and ruminating of what was learned. March 30, 2021
About a hug – a personal essay
A meditation on loss, written during Covid. July 29, 2020
FAREWELL COMPANION: GERRY MORGAN – A PERSONAL REFLECTION
Gerry Morgan was a theatre director, lecturer and dear friend who died too young. Mar 11, 2020
Still here: personal thoughts in response to the Arts Council’s “Paying the Artist” report
Feb 13, 2020
Getting it right? New Arts Council schemes announced.
Feb 2, 2020 at 9:59 AM
Old Dog for the Hard Road: 7 thoughts on touring
Apr 5, 2017 at 10:16 PM
BEHIND THE BIOGRAPHY: careering through the arts
By far the most widely read of my past blogs: this was re-published by RTE Digital and generated a lot of chat. Written just as the 2009-16 recession was coming to an end, it traces the highs and lows of a 30 year career (up to that point). Oct 2, 2016 at 2:39 PM
CORRECTING THE PUBLIC FINANCES – 7 THOUGHTS ON ARTS DISINVESTMENT IN IRELAND
Jun 24, 2016 at 10:26 AM
#WakingTheFeminists – Looking Back as we Look Forward
Nov 11, 2015 at 5:55 PM
WHAT I MISUNDERSTOOD (or why there is no longer a national policy for theatre in Ireland)
Jun 10, 2015 at 11:44 PM
One of my own enduring favourites. Inspired by a remarkable weekend of debate and exemplars of Irish and international theatre in the name of justice, peace and resistance. Jan 25, 2015 at 10:32 PM
HOLY SHOW – Rites, rituals and skirmishes with religion – a year in a freelance theatre life
A look back over a typical year in the wilderness of the freelance theatre, mid-recession. Dec 31, 2014 at 10:29 PM
THE PARADE OF INNOCENCE: 25 YEARS ON
Dec 9, 2014 at 9:13 AM
MUCH ADO ABOUT THE WRONG THING? an essay on the state of debate in Irish theatre
Jan 24 2013, at 1:19 PM
Another beautiful man of the theatre who died too young – remembered with great love. Oct 7, 2013 at 12:35 AM
Declan Gorman to return to the stage? … No … Not possible…
Announcing my launch of myself on an unsuspecting public when I decided to my own surprise that going back on stage after many years behind the scenes, might be just the trick to rescue a career set back by a recession not of my own making. May 25, 2012 at 12:56 PM
Border Chronicles now Available to Puchase Online
Mar 12, 2012 at 12:42 PM
Yes: an ad for my scripts!
