Bairbre Ní Chaoimh
Bairbre is an award-winning actor who also works as a director and writer. She has toured nationally and internationally with all the major Irish theatre companies, working in Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, Kosovo, Macedonia, America, Canada, Japan and Australia. She was an Associate Artist at The Abbey Theatre for three years and Artistic Director of Calypso Productions.
Recent acting roles include Sampa in the Rose Tattoo at The Complex, Meryl in The Dry for RTÉ, The Mother in One Moment Now for Murmuration in Bewley’s Café Dublin and Wooly Mammoth Theatre in Washington DC, Mrs. Bunch in Lost Hearts (on stage and screen), the title role in Maura Laverty – This was your life’ on a national theatre tour and in an adaptation of it for RTE Drama on One (Zebbie Award 2022), Aunt Bee in My Aunt Bee on a national tour, Mrs. Brennan in Dáil 100 for Speckintime in Leinster House and a narrator and puppeteer in The Selfish Giant for The Wilde Garden Adventure.
She was nominated for acting awards for roles in two Druid productions - The Shaughraun and The Playboy Of The Western World and for Drama At Inish at The Abbey Theatre production. She acted in several of ANU Productions’ award-winning immersive shows. They include Basin (set in The Blessingon Street Basin), Laundry (set in the Sean Mc Dermott Street Magdalene Laundry), which won the Irish Times Best Production award and also Thirteen (in Liberty Hall) which won the Irish Times Judges’ Special Award.
Performances in The Gate include Private Lives, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Rivals, Salomé and Come and Go. In The Abbey she acted in The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Sanctuary Lamp, Ulysses In Night-town, Candide, The King Of Friday’s Men, Gallileo, The Far Off Hills, Drama At Inish, Cúirt An Mheanoíche, Deoraíocht and Scéal Scéalaí. She worked on The End Of The Road for Fishamble, Fear An Tae for Amharclann de h-Íde, An Triail for Aisling Ghéar, The Henhouse Epiphany/Cinneadh Na Circe for An Taibhdhearc and Our Island for Mirari at Project Arts Centre (which received five award nominations at the Dublin Fringe Festival).
Bairbre won an Actor’s Craft Award for her role as Aisling in the bilingual film An Crann/The Tree at the First Run Film Festival in New York. She played the part of Carmel in Ireland’s drama serial Glenroe. A selection of film and TV credits include Washed Up Love, Aristocrats, Angela’s Ashes, Falling For A Dancer, August Saturday, The Real Charlotte, Caught In A Free State, Val Falvey TD, Lovers Of The Lake, Paddywhackery, Fair City, Scúp, Corp Agus Anam, Aifric, Na Fíor Ghaeil, Friends For Life, The Pearse Sisters, Finbar’s Class, Frankie Starlight, The Playboy Of The Western Word, Les Poneys Sauvages, The Fantasist, The Outcasts, The Orange And The Green, Cúirt An Mheanoíche, Rawhead Rex and Hamlet And Her Brothers.
She has directed several productions that received awards in Ireland and at international festivals in Europe, America and Australia. They include plays for Calypso, three plays by Samuel Beckett, Act Without Words ll, Come And Go and Play for The Gate Theatre’s international Beckett Festival, which toured to The Barbican in London and The Lincoln Center in New York and Catalpa by Donal O’Kelly, produced by The Gate Theatre, Lane Productions and Red Kettle which has won awards on three continents. She helped develop and subsequently directed Noni Stapleton’s one-woman show called Charolais. Since its début at the 2015 Dublin Fringe Festival, it has toured worldwide and received a host of awards including The Stewart Parker Award and The Little Gem Award and it was a finalist for The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Bairbre played the role of Bridie in a three-hander adaptation of the play for radio which won a Prix Europa, a Silver Award at the NYC Radio Awards and a PPI Bronze Award.
She has acted in numerous radio plays for RTE and in their long running drama serial Harbour Hotel. She also directed the radio play Baby and Bathwater. She has acted in several plays for BBC Radio.
Bairbre is based in Dublin.