Malachy McKenna

A member of the Writers Guild of Ireland, Malachy graduated from NUI Galway with an honours degree in English and History and a Post Graduate Diploma in Communications. He trained as an actor at the Focus Stanislavski Studio, Dublin, under the late Deirdre O’ Connell who founded the Focus Theatre.

Malachy won the P.J. O’ Connor Radio Drama Award in 2014 for his radio play The Quiet Land, which has been described as “a masterpiece of hint and intimation”. He has also completed a stage version of the play. He has co-written Water Pressure, a play for teenagers based on the short story of the same title by Conor Bowman. Malachy’s first play, Tillsonburg, won the Stewart Parker Trust Literary Award having premiered at the Focus Theatre, Dublin. It has had several Irish tours and had its North American premiere with the Canadian Stage Company, Toronto, as well as several lengthy runs in the Rep in Arad state theatre Romania. The play was published by Methuen Press in the collection The Tiger in Winter.

Malachy recently completed his first horror film Black Convent which is in development with both a Los Angeles based producer and director. He is currently writing a Christmas based film script, A Canoe For Christmas.

Malachy is included in a recent published anthology of RTE Radio’s Sunday Miscellany for his story The Divinity of Rivers.