The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Martin McDonagh, the son of a Sligo mother and a Galway father, grew up in London but spent all his summers in Ireland. When his parents returned to Ireland, he and his older brother remained in London but continued to spend much time in Connemara and Sligo.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is McDonagh's first play, first performed in the Town Hall, Galway on February 1st 1996, and then transferred to London's Royal Court Theatre. It subsequently moved to Broadway, where it won four Tony awards. The play is the first in his Connemara Trilogy, which also includes A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West.

The Cripple of Inishmaan, the first of his trilogy of Aran Island plays (which also includes The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Banshees of Inisheer), opened at Britain's National Theatre and transferred to New York. It also received productions in several American cities, including Los Angeles and Philadelphia. McDonagh is resident playwright at the Royal National Theatre and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.
 

McDonagh has been described by The New York Times as "Exuberantly nervy and talented... [He] could be the most original, seriously pertinent Irish playwright in years." "[He is] the most wickedly funny, brilliantly abrasive young dramatist on either side of the Irish Sea.... He is a born storyteller."

McDonagh (like Shane McGowan) is part of a generation which has redefined the term 'Anglo-Irish. It used to mean a member of the old Irish ascendency with deep cultural and poitical affinities for England. Now it has come to mean a new kind of fusion, that arises not from ascendency but from exile. The children of Irish emigrants, with accents and attitudes of urban England but with connections to Irish culture.

In McDonagh's plays everyday banality takes on sinister undertones. This coupled with dark comedy and melodramatic plots makes for very interesting theatre.