TUS Archive Collections

Brendan O’Brien archive material relating to the All-Ireland Drama Festival 1953-1982

• • Correspondence including letters from Beatrice Behan (widow of playwright Brendan Behan), Teresa Deevy (playwright), Maureen Delaney (Abbey actress and adjudicator), Hilton Edwards (actor and co-founder of the Gate Theatre) among many others.
  • Signed messages/Letters by Eamon de Valera; Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave; Harold Wilson, British P.M.; President Patrick Hillary and President Mary Robinson.
  • 3 Bound volumes of programmes from the All-Ireland Drama Festival 1953-1982
  • Some loose programmes – gap 1983-87
  • 26 annual festival programmes from 1988 – 2018 (Missing 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2019, 2022.
  • Loose leaf vols of Brendan O’Brien’s ‘diaries’ of the Festival from 1953-1972.
  • Seating Plan of Sportext Hall – thought to be the only one in existance
  • 10 folders of miscellaneous (unsorted)material relating to ADcI, ADAI, the Drama Festival, Adjudicators reports, press cuttings etc.
  • 6 original large format posters for the Festival for 1954, 1955, 1958,1959,1963,1964
  • The Constitution of the Amateur Drama Council of Ireland
  • Amateur Drama Bulletin, Vol 1, No. 1, 1964
  • Gearoid O’Brien (ed) All-Ireland Drama Festival Athlone 1953-2002, 50 Glorious Years of Drama, (Athlone: All-Ireland Festival Committee, 2002).