Druid consistently brings groundbreaking productions of classic and new dramatic works to the world stage and, as such, has drawn extensively from the Irish dramatic repertoire and has worked with celebrated Irish and international playwrights. Productions that have gone on to gain international recognition include The Playboy of the Western World (1982), At the Black Pig’s Dyke (1992), Conversations on a Homecoming (1985), and Bailegangaire (1985) featuring Siobhán McKenna in one of her finest dramatic performances. The latter two productions formed part of a major association between Druid and Tom Murphy who was Writer-in-Association with the company and had four of his major works première in Galway.

DruidSynge, the company’s critically ac­claimed production of all six of John Millington Synge’s plays on the same day, premièred at the Galway Arts Festival in 2005 and has since toured to Dublin, Edinburgh, Inis Meáin, Minne­apolis and New York. DruidSynge has been de­scribed by The Irish Times as ‘one of the greatest achievements in the history of Irish theatre’ and by Charles Isherwood of The New York Times as ‘the highlight not just of my theatregoing year but of my theatregoing life’.

Through its new writing programme, DruidNew, Druid includes among its recent successes the premières in 2006 of The Walworth Farce by Enda Walsh (Fringe First, Edinburgh 2007), Empress of India by Stuart Carolan and in 2007, Leaves by Lucy Caldwell (George Devine Award 2006 and 29th Susan Smith Blackburn Award).