Martin Lynch

Martin Lynch is a playwright and theatre director from Belfast. Life Martin Lynch was born in the docks area of Belfast in 1950. He left school at 15 and became a cloth cutter, then a docker until 1973, when he became a full time organiser for the Republican Clubs. In 1975, he organised a tour of community centres with John Arden’s Non-Stop Connolly Show. This inspired Lynch to write plays himself. Work He co-founded the Turf Lodge Fellowship Community Theatre in 1976. Over the next five years, he wrote a series of plays including We Want Work, We Want Bread (1977), They’re Taking The Barricades Down, What About Your Ma is Your Da Still Workin’?, and A Roof Under Our Heads. He then worked as writer in residence with the Lyric Theatre (Belfast) (1980-82). For the Lyric he wrote: Dockers (1981), a recreation of working class life in Belfast’s Sailortown district. This was followed by The Interrogation of Ambrose Fogarty (1982), Castles in the Air (1983), and Minstrel Boys (1985). Lynch's plays have been performed throughout Ireland and in the UK, Europe and the USA. In 1983, along with Marie Jones he wrote 'Lay Up Your Ends' for Charabanc Theatre Co., based on the Belfast Mills girls strike of 1911. From 1985 - 88. he was Writer In Residence at the University Of Ulster, (Coleraine). In 1987 he wrote the screenplay for the Sam Goldwyn Hollywood movie 'A Prayer For The Dying' starring Mickey Rourke, Bob Hoskins and Liam Neeson (acting in his first feature film). In the 1990's Lynch wrote several plays BBC Radio's 3 & 4, including 'The Clearance Of Audleystown', 'Needles and Pinsa' and 'Pictures Of Tomorrow' For the stage in this period he wrote, Northern Ireland's first large-scale Community Play, 'The Stone Chair', 'Rinty', Pictures Of Tomorrow and with Marie Jones & The Company 'The Wedding Community Play'.