Patricia Brogan

Patricia Burke Brogan (17 March 1926 – 5 September 2022) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, artist, and Broadway performer. Born in County Clare, she moved to Galway at the age of two, where she grew up in a household filled with books and music. Her father played a significant role in shaping her early intellectual life, and she began reading and writing from a young age. Despite being advised to concentrate on a single discipline, she maintained a lifelong commitment to both writing and visual art, regarding them as expressions of different aspects of her identity.

Brogan appeared on Broadway in 1963, with her credits including Double Dublin, for which she also served as book writer. This early work placed her among a relatively small group of Irish artists to contribute to Broadway productions during that era.

Her first play, Eclipsed, drew on her experiences as a young novitiate and became one of the earliest dramatic works to address the Magdalene Laundries. Initially rejected by major theatre companies on the grounds that the subject matter was too controversial, the play was ultimately produced in 1992 by a small company called Punchbag. That same year it received a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival, and in 1994 it was awarded the United States Moss Hart Award. The production generated significant personal backlash against Brogan, including threatening correspondence sent to her home. To date, Eclipsed has received 61 productions across three continents and is included as a text on the Leaving Certificate English Syllabus in Ireland.

Brogan went on to write two additional plays, Requiem of Love and Stained Glass at Samhain, the latter published in 2002. She also produced several poetry collections, including Décollage New and Selected Poems, launched at the Galway City Museum in October 2008. Her memoir, Memoir with Grykes and Turloughs, was launched by Sabina Higgins at Galway Education Centre in 2014. Eclipsed, Requiem of Love, Stained Glass at Samhain, Décollage New and Selected Poems, and the memoir are all published by Wordsonthestreet.

A founding member of Galway Writers' Workshop in 1981, Brogan remained a regular participant until 2014 and contributed poetry and memoir to Crannóg literary magazine. As a visual artist, her work appeared on the covers of Crannóg magazine and on the cover of Galway Then, Galway Now, an anthology published to mark Galway's designation as City of Culture in 2020. In 2022, she was awarded the Freedom of the City of Galway.