The Folan Home in Connemara, Ireland in 1996.

MAG FOLAN
Maureen’s mother, a widow living with her daughter on the rural family homestead in Leenane. A woman of poor health—sitting in a rocking chair, staring into space. She is not good hearted.

MAUREEN FOLAN
An unmarried woman living with and caring for her elderly mother. Has a turbulent relationship with her mother.

PATO DOOLEY
A good-looking local man. An acquaintance of Maureen as they have similar backgrounds. Relatively reserved. Goes to England every two months to live and work.

RAY DOOLEY
One of the youngest of a large Leenane family; Pato is his older brother. Easily annoyed. Not too smart.

Martin McDonagh was born on March 26th, 1970 in southeast London. At sixteen years of age, McDonagh drops out of school and works at various jobs, including stocking shelves at a supermarket and doing clerical work at the Department of Trade and Industry. He steals stationery from the latter “to write his stories and plays on”. In 1994, McDonagh decides to start writing in an exaggerated version of the speech he used to hear during his summer vacations in Ireland. That exaggerated speech would become a catalyst for six plays that will be known as his Irish Plays. McDonagh writes them in a period of ten months between 1994 and 1995: The Beauty Queen of Leenane (which he wrote in a week and a half), A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West (together known as The Leenane Trilogy), and The Cripple of Inishmaan (which he wrote in five weeks), The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Banshees of Inisheer (collectively known as The Aran Islands Trilogy).

Druid Theatre premieres The Beauty Queen of Leenane at the Town Hall Theatre on February 1st, 1996 with Garry Hynes as director. After a brief tour of cities in Ireland, it transfers to the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, opening on February 29th. In November, the play opens at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End. It proves an enormous success in both countries. At the year’s close, McDonagh receives the George Devine Award as “Most Promising Newcomer,” an annual prize established in 1966 to honor the first director of the Royal Court Theatre. At the ceremony, Martin and his brother, drunk and rowdy, are admonished by Sean Connery, resulting in a confrontation that lights up the tabloids. When it comes time for Druid to choose their next McDonagh play, Garry Hynes decides to stage all three as The Leenane Trilogy. The Beauty Queen of Leenane opened Off-Broadway at the Linda Gross Theater on February 11th, 1998 and transferred to Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre on April 23rd, 1998. It received six nominations at the 52nd Tony Awards and won four for: Best Supporting Actor (Tom Murphy), Best Actress (Marie Mullen), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Manahan), and Best Director (Garry Hynes), the first female recipient of a Tony Award for directing a play. His other works include Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Seven Psychopaths, The Banshees of Inisheer, which is the third play in The Aran Islands Trilogy but was never published, The Pillowman, A Behanding In Spokane, and more. His next film Wild Horse Nine began filming in March 2025.