Waterford actress Éilish McLaughlin makes her debut with the acclaimed Druid Theatre Company this summer, playing ‘Nuala’ in Billy Roche’s classic play The Cavalcaders, which comes to Theatre Royal on 24th June as part of a national tour.

Originally from the Dunmore Road, Éilish is a former pupil of St Angela’s Ursuline Secondary School in the city. She’s been involved in theatre since the tender age of 9, when she first started attending stage school locally, and previously performed at the Theatre Royal while a teenager, in South Eastern Theatre Group’s Phantom of the Opera. Éilish went on to attend The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Art in Dublin, from where she graduated in 2019. “No-one in my family is directly involved in theatre but my paternal grandfather was hugely into amateur dramatics in Lurgan in Armagh”, Éilish says. “My parents are very proud and supportive of me and I know my dad would love if his father were alive to see me working in theatre.”

The Cavalcaders is a comic and tender portrait of life in small-town, pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland and the men who lived there. Terry and his friends Josie, Rory and Ted spend their days as cobblers and their nights as The Cavalcaders, a barbershop quartet of local renown. But life has taken its toll on Terry and past betrayals cast long shadows. Billy Roche’s classic memory play takes you on a journey back in time to the 1990s, to heartache, companionship and the redemptive power of song.

REVIEWS

“A resolutely feelgood drama… will have you singing … all the way home” – Irish Times

“These are ordinary humans … but the drama carved is a drama of kings and queens. That is the achievement of Roche…” – Irish Independent

Book here