Selected Playwrights
Each year, we are blown away by the work sent to us for consideration for Scripts. 2026 was no different with a new record-breaking 183 submissions sent to us!
We are delighted to announce the chosen 3 who'll be joining us for a week of mentorship and development with the team and Eugene O'Brien in July.
Liza Costello
In The Garden
Liza Costello is a writer from County Westmeath.
he is the author of the short story collection None Of Us Will Be Okay (Broken Sleep Books) and the novels The Estate and Crookedwood (Hachette Ireland). She holds a PhD from DCU School of English for her thesis on the writing of Dermot Healy. In The Garden is her first play.
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ABOUT HER PLAY : In The GardenWhen Lukas finishes transplanting a laurel tree for one of his wealthy gardening clients, all he wants is to get home in time to take his son to football training. But Marion has questions about the tree – and other reasons for keeping him there. What begins as a minor inconvenience slowly turns into a tense negotiation of class, loneliness and power that asks where ‘mere’ pushiness might end and violence begin.
LIAM McCARTHY
Mam and Love and Woo
A originally from Limerick, Ireland, Liam's plays include He Dies in the End (Dublin Fringe 2025, First Fortnight Award Winner), Jilly Morgan’s Birthday Party (Belltable, Limerick and National Tour 2025), and Monkeys in the Garden (upcoming). Liam co-created Boss Rob: A Masterclass for Aspiring Artists, a commission from Dublin City Council’s Creative Hubs Project, (presented at IMMA and on tour.) Liam has participated in Druid Theatre’s Fuel programme, Corcadorca’s Show festival, Branar’s Meitheal and Words Words Words at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. He was a ‘6 in the Attic’ artist with the Irish Theatre Institute and an Arts Council Next Generation Award recipient.
ABOUT HIS PLAY : Mam and Love and WooMam is concerned that her son spends too much time at the riverfront of Limerick City. Preoccupied as she is with her love and concern, she hasn’t left her house in six weeks. Her quiet life is upended when a well-meaning community volunteer barrels into her world…
ELAINE MAGUIRE O'CONNOR
Lay Your Hands On Me
Elaine is an emerging playwright and fiction writer from Dublin. Her work has been published in anthologies and staged in theatres in Ireland and the United States. Her non-fiction work focuses on the intersection of law, ethics and the arts.
ABOUT HER PLAY : Lay Your Hands On Me
In a dingy bedsit, restless Alannah pushes her broke, aimless boyfriend Bagsy to exploit his alleged healing powers for money. Caught between scepticism and desire—for Alannah, money, and meaning—Bagsy wrestles with a decision that could transform their lives. But when tragedy strikes, they realise something much darker was already in motion.