Dublin's theatres

Map of 12 locations in Dublin, Ireland

Dublin's stages run from a 1662 playhouse site rebuilt as a church and back again to a Libeskind box on the Grand Canal basin, and the working list is smaller than the city's theatrical reputation suggests. These are the rooms that are open and programming: the national theatre and its studio, the two Victorian houses that still split the Christmas pantomime between them, a campus theatre inside Trinity, and the suburban arts centres in Tallaght, Blanchardstown and Dún Laoghaire that take festival work the city centre cannot fit. Each carries its own box office and booking route where one is published.

Places in this collection

  • The Helix — Built into Dublin City University's campus on Collins Avenue and operated separately from the college's academic buildings, which is how it…
  • Liberty Hall Theatre — The theatre on Eden Quay, under the tower that gives it its name, and one of the smaller rooms on the active list of theatres in the Republ…
  • Draíocht — Blanchardstown's arts centre, whose main auditorium does more than receive work: it co-produced Without Distinction of Sex with Once Off Pr…
  • Pavilion Theatre — Established in 2001 in the Pavilion building on Marine Road, a short walk from the Dún Laoghaire ferry terminal and the DART. It programmes…
  • Civic Theatre — Tallaght's theatre on Belgard Square East, a three-storey building in the town centre rather than a converted older house, and the main rec…
  • Samuel Beckett Theatre — The campus theatre of Trinity College's School of Creative Arts, off Pearse Street, which gives its term-time stage over to academics, prac…
  • Bord Gáis Energy Theatre — Built in 2010 to a Daniel Libeskind design on Grand Canal Square and opened as the Grand Canal Theatre, which is still the name a lot of Du…
  • Smock Alley Theatre — The site carried the first Theatre Royal from 1662, the only theatre of that title built outside England, and the present room is a 19th-ce…
  • Gate Theatre — Founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir to give Dublin audiences the European and American avant-garde that the Abbey was…
  • Gaiety Theatre — Opened on 27 November 1871 and among the longest continuously producing theatres in the city, with a repertoire that has swung between dram…
  • Olympia Theatre — Opened in 1879 and known before that as Dan Lowrey's Music Hall, the Dame Street house has changed hands repeatedly and now trades as the 3…
  • Abbey Theatre — The National Theatre of Ireland, which first opened to the public on 27 December 1904 with a bill that included the premiere of Yeats's On…

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