Patrick Lonergan

Patrick Lonergan is the Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at the School of English, Media and Creative Arts at the University of Galway.

His research explores theatre history in relation to wider social and ecological systems, including globalization, social media, and the climate crisis. This work is often grounded in the study of Irish theatre, and is currently being developed transnationally through CoastARTS, a CHANSE/HERA-funded project examining coastlines across Europe and its former colonies as zones of ecological and cultural crisis. That project is carried out in collaboration with researchers and arts organisations in the UK, Spain, Portugal and Norway. https://chanse.org/coastarts/ 

His six monographs explore that relationship between theatre and broader societal movements and systems. They include Theatre and Globalization: Irish Drama in the Celtic Tiger Era (winner of the 2008 Theatre Book Prize); The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh (Methuen Drama, 2012; Russian translation 2014); Theatre and Social Media (2015; second edition 2024; Korean translation forthcoming); Irish Drama and Theatre Since 1950 (Bloomsbury, 2019); Theatre Revivals for the Anthropocene (Cambridge, 2023); and Druid Theatre: Fifty Years (Lilliput Press, 2025). Recent articles and chapters include ecocritical explorations of Caryl Churchill, Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown, Samuel Beckett, Patrick Kavanagh - as well as chapters and articles on Yeats, Shakespearean performance, and Boucicault. He has also co-edited books about the Gate Theatre and Dublin Theatre Festival; has edited or co-edited four play anthologies, including volumes on Rough Magic and Druid Theatre; and is the co-editor of Methuen Drama's "Critical Companions" series, which has published more than 30 new books since 2012. 

At Galway, he teaches in the Discipline of Drama and Theatre Studies, while also contributing to programmes in English and Music. Recent modules include Musical Theatre, Performing and Screening Ireland, Theatre Histories, and Creative Arts Ideas Lab. He founded the discipline of Drama in 2014, and led the development and construction of the O'Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, which was opened in 2017 by President Michael D. Higgins.

He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy in 2018, and to the Executive Committee of the International Federation for Theatre Research in 2022. From 2022–26, he was Chair of the Board of Directors of the Galway International Arts Festival.

A graduate of University College Dublin, he has given many invited lectures on Irish literature and drama internationally, including in Austria, Brazil, Egypt, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Singapore, the UK, and the United States, and was the 2019 Burns Visiting Fellow for Irish Studies at Boston College.

Irish theatre and Irish literature; theatre history; and theatre and the environment. I have also published on contemporary British drama and Shakespearean performance histories.

I primarily teach in Drama and Theatre Studies programmes, while also contributing to teaching in English and Music. Recent courses include Theatre Histories, Musical Theatre, Performing and Screening Ireland, Creative Arts Ideas Lab, and a final year English lecture course on Drama and Theatre Studies.