Mick Donnellan has been in touch to let me know about his play Shortcut to Hallelujah, which the Truman Town Theatre will shortly be bringing to the stage at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway. The play was previously performed in Galway (at the Town Hall Studio) last August, in Ballinrobe (in the Valkenburg) last September and at the Linenhall in Castlebar in January this year. Its upcoming stint in Galway sees it running from Tuesday 26th to Saturday 30th June.

The play is set in Quinn’s Bar in Ballinrobe in the run-up to an All-Ireland final featuring Mayo and Kerry. The plot involves a curse on the county team, a bitter dispute over land, an intractable quarrel that stretches back a few generations and a tragic heroine who wants to get the hell out of Ballinrobe but finds this is more difficult than she thought possible.

If all this sounds to your liking (and sure why wouldn’t it?), full details on the play’s run at the Town Hall Theatre are available here.

I’ve also got two pairs of tickets to the play, kindly donated by the playwright himself, to give away, one lot for the performance on Tuesday 26th June and the other for the performance on Wednesday 27th. I will do so to the first two people who email me (emails to mayogaablog@ymail.com) with the correct answer to the following question: what is the name of the GAA ground in the town in which Shortcut to Hallelujah is set? Replies only by email, please – responding via the comments would kinda spoil the fun.

UPDATE: I’ve now got two winners – JPM and Albany – who both correctly identified the ground in question as Flanagan Park. Well done to both.

Mick, by the way, is also a crime fiction writer, having recently published his first novel, entitled El Niño (which I’m assured has nothing whatsoever to do with Fernando Torres). Further details on the book are available here.