The third annual Thomas MacDonagh Hedge School talks will take place at the Thomas MacDonagh Museum in Cloughjordan, County Tipperary 20 September 2025. The programme, whose theme is Political Theatre: Learning from the past?, includes inspirational talks and readings, scriptwriting workshops and an exhibition by North Tipperary Artists’ Collective. Assistant Professor in the School of History, DCU, Dr Leeann Lane’s keynote address is titled ‘Hunger strike as republican performativity: Mary MacSwiney, Brixton, 1920, Mountjoy 1922, Kilmainham 1923’. Williams Rossa Cole, great-grandson of O’Donovan Rossa will introduce his film “Rebel Wife: The Story of Mary Jane O’Donovan Rossa” and take questions following the screening. James Moran, Professor of Modern English Literature and Drama, Faculty of Arts at Nottingham University, will deliver a talk on ‘The playwrights and 1916’. The presentation will feature extracts from plays, including The Plough and the Stars, which caused riotous disturbance at the Abbey Theatre when first performed in 1926. In their discussion ‘Poetry and Politics: Plural Perspectives’ Dr Ailbhe McDaid and Prof Eugene O’Brien, of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, will discuss how poets respond to different political events, and the symbolic (even theatrical) language of poetry to capture the past and current political upheavals.