PODCAST -Strike! The Play

Tracy Ryan (writer), Kirsty Patrick Ward (Director) and Andrew Muir (Ardent)

One day in 2008, a radio interview grabbed the attention of playwright Tracy Ryan. Irish Department store owner Ben Dunne was trying to apologise to a former employee. It wasn't going well.That employee, Mary Manning, had spent more than two and a half years on strike at Dunnes. And Tracy had stumbled on to the story of how a small group of shop workers defied the Irish establishment. Her play STRIKE! was born.

1:43 - Tracy Ryan discovers the Dunnes Stores strike story

3:55 - Meeting the strikers

6:58 - Director Kirsty Patrick Ward gets hooked on the script

8:45 - Early stagings of the play rekindle interest in the strikers' story

12:07 - Kirsty Patrick Ward starts working on the 2023 production

16:09 - Edits and rewrites tighten the pacing

23:15 - Shaping characters and bringing them to life

25:40 - The show goes on stage - with the strikers in the audience

29:02 The show's over. How to the writer and director feel?