Belfast Girls

BELFAST GIRLS by Jaki McCarrick

(in English language)

The year is 1850, Belfast, Ireland. Two hundred women are departing on a ship bound for Australia under the Earl Grey Orphan Emigration Scheme. Escaping workhouses overpopulated during the Great Famine, they are set to become "mistresses of their own destiny" as servants, farm-workers - and, indeed, wives - in the Colonies. BELFAST GIRLS by Irish playwright, Jaki McCarrick, focuses on five of the most "notorious and riotous" of these women and their three month journey in the bowels of the Inchinnan ship. For some the voyage offers a fresh start, but others find they cannot escape the memory of the lives they've left behind.

Jaki McCarrick won the 2010 Papatango Prize for New Writing for her play Leopoldville. Belfast Girls was developed at the National Theater Studio, and was shortlisted for the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the 2014 BBC Tony Doyle Award.

Part of Zeitgeist Ireland 24, an initiative of Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany.

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English Theatre Düsseldorf is a professional English-language theater company in North Rhine Westphalia. Our mission is to bring artistically excellent English-language theater to English learners and native speakers alike; to provide meaningful international cultural experiences; to facilitate cultural exchange; and to foster arts appreciation and artistic expression in students of all ages. ETD is committed to supporting the already vital and growing international cultural landscape of Düsseldorf through the arts. We achieve our vision by collaborating with international artists; programming a diverse season that includes new and developing work from local playwrights as well as European premieres of international plays; and by empowering our community through theater workshops for adults and children.