Our History

Founded

Macnas was founded in Galway in 1986 by Páraic Breathnach, Tom Conroy, Ollie Jennings and Pete Sammon.

Gulliver

In a year that celebrated Dublin’s Millennium, an impressive fibreglass, aluminium and plywood figure of Gulliver, the central character of  Gulliver’s Travels floated up the Liffey and was beached on Dollymount Strand as a tribute to one of Dublin’s finest writers, the great satirist Jonathan Swift.

Táin

Part 1 of a Celtic Trilogy

Táin premiered at Spain Expo in 1992 and was part of Galway Arts Festival in the same year. Táin heralded the creation of a new form of Irish theatre for the world stage, combining the elements of movement, live music and dynamic design.

Awarded Best Irish Production at the Dublin Theatre Awards Festival 1992.

U2 Zooropa Tour

Macnas created the now iconic U2 heads for the Irish band’s ground-breaking tour, joining U2 on the road with the Zooropa Tour.

Rhymes From The Ancient Mariner

A major departure on a number of fronts for Macnas, Rhymes From The Ancient Mariner was staged in Galway’s newly opened Black Box Theatre in 1996. The story, set in both the 1950s and 1798, followed the voyage of Coleridge’s Mariner from the Antarctic ice flow to the Saragossa Sea.

The Lost Days of Ollie Deasy

Ollie Deasy is a former hurling hero who went off to play an exhibition match some time ago and hasn’t been heard of since. In searching for him, his son boards a bus driven by a blind man and a odyssey begins...

Awarded Best Irish Theatre Production, Dublin Theatre Festival 2000