WIS Database of Writers

KEN BOURKE grew up in Terenure in Dublin, where his interest in theatre began in school productions of Shakespeare & the local youth club drama project. He started writing one-act plays for amateur production in 1984, & took to writing full-time in 1986. He had his first professional production, Wild Harvest, with Druid in 1989. Since then he has worked throughout Ireland, writing plays for a wide range of companies & groups.

His work includes The Tide Can Wait (Tinderbox, 1990), Galloping Buck Jones (Tinderbox, 1994), Breathing Space (Galloglass/Theatre West Glamorgan, 1998), & The Hunt for Red Willie (Peacock, 2000).

Ken has worked with Team Educational Theatre in Dublin on two shows, The Well, 1993, & Fixing Bill Haley, 1995.

He has worked with community theatre groups in North Belfast (The Narrow Ground, 1993), East Belfast (The Mourning Ring, 1995), in Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny (The Comer Story, 1997), & in Newbridge, Co. Kildare (Strangers, 1997).

He has written two plays for the final year students of the Gaiety School of Acting (The Beloved, 1995), & (The House in Gortnashee, 1999).

In 1997-98, while living in Co. Kildare, he was Writer-in-Residence with Offaly County Council. He now lives in Kilkenny.

Ken has worked with Barnstorm Theatre Company on several projects, including their production of Wild Harvest in 1994; the community play, The Comer Story in 1997; & The Ballad of Rory Roe in 2000, which was performed as part of an open-air celebration of the Millennium in Kells Priory, Co. Kilkenny.

His play for children, Little Rudolf, was produced by Barnstorm Theatre Company in Kilkenny in 2006, and revived in 2007.

Ken’s most recent play, Buck Jones and the Body Snatchers, was produced by Joan Sheehy in Limerick in 2008; the show was nominated for Best Production in The Irish Times Theatre Awards for that year, and has since played to capacity audiences in the 2009 Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival.