New North: A Festival of New Writing for Culture Night Belfast 2026

Produced by Prime Cut Productions at the Lyric Naughton Studio and McGrath Suite

Belfast audiences are invited to experience a bold showcase of new writing  from five female playwrights from across Ulster. Presented by Prime Cut Productions as part of Culture Night Belfast, the festival will present readings five new plays starting at 12 noon, throughout the Lyric Theatre on September 18th 2026.

The Programme

Audiences will enjoy rehearsed readings of five eclectic new works:

•     In “The Ache Of It” by Caitlin Magnall Kearns, Two fifty‑somethings find unexpected connection, humour and tenderness in a weekly seaside escape that gently explores desirability, disability and ageing..

•     ”The Girls of the Sacred Heart: by Sarah McKenna Dunne honours the thirty five children and one older woman lost in the 1943 Cavan fire, drawing us gently but powerfully toward the silenced truths, institutional shadows and enduring human dignity behind this overlooked chapter of Irish history

•     “The List” by Fionnuala Kennedy is a  stark, darkly funny and provocative new drama that thrusts us into a clandestine world that channels the power of a punk infused Greek chorus to illuminate the systemic failures facing women in Northern Ireland.

•     Alice Malseed’s “Sticky City” is a sharp, funny and fiercely feminist letter to Belfast, following a woman ready to torch every broken system that shaped her as she rewrites the city’s past, present and future with wit, fire and unapologetic hope.

•     ”The Three Green Fields (And the Fourth One at the Back Door)” by Katie Marie Moore is a sharp, contemporary drama in which a Halloween gathering in suburban Dublin unravels into a fierce, funny, and unsettling battle for Irish identity as four friends confront a mysterious intruder and the fault lines of who truly gets to call Ireland home

Each play will be brought to life by a dynamic ensemble of some of the island of Ireland’s finest actors, directed by critically acclaimed directors : Emma Jordan, Rhiann Jeffrey, Fionnuala Kennedy and Michael McEvoy.