Faye Boland lives in Kenmare, Co.Kerry.

Her work has been published in numerous literary magazines and journals. She has won the Robert Leslie Boland poetry prize 2018 and the Hanna Greally International Literary Award 2017. She was shortlisted in 2013 for the Poetry on the Lake XIII International Poetry Competition and was highly commended for a Kerry Literary Award (for fiction) in 2015.

She is also a Volunteer Tutor on the Fighting Words Creative Writing Programme.

Mary Moynihan, (she/her), MA, is an award-winning writer, director, theatre and film-maker, an interdisciplinary artist and one of Ireland’s most innovative arts and human rights artists creating work to promote the arts, human rights, climate justice, gender equality, diversity and peace. 

Mary is Artistic Director of Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality and works  collaboratively with artists and over 50 organisations across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Europe and internationally, using the arts to promote rights and values for all.   Company patrons of Smashing Times are Sabina Coyne Higgins, Senator Joan Freeman, founder of Pieta House, Ger Ryan, actor and Tim Pat Coogan, writer and historian. Founding patrons were writers Maeve Binchy and Brian Friel.

Mary’s work has won a number of awards including the Allianz Business to Arts Awards, a GSK Ireland Impact Award, a Dublin Bus Community Spirit Award, a National Lottery Good Cause Award, the international #ArtsAgainstCovid award, an Arts Council Project Award and an Arts Council Agility Award.

Mary is Artistic Curator for the annual Dublin Arts and Human Rights festival implemented by Smashing Times and Front Line Defenders in partnership with Amnesty International, Fighting Words, ICCL,  NWCI, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Trócaire and Poetry Ireland, funded by The Arts Council. The aim of the festival is to showcase and highlight the extraordinary work of human rights defenders in Ireland and around the world, past and present, and the role of the arts and artists in promoting human rights today.

Mary’s artistic practice encompasses theatre, film, literature, poetry, and curatorship. Mary’s work focuses on primal, visceral and intuitive responses to vulnerability and conflict and an exploration of self and the other. Her work explores an interconnectedness of the body, voice and imagination, revealing the inner life through physical and spiritual energies and intuitive engagements. Mary has a focus on using historical memory in her artistic practice as inspiration for the creation of original artworks across a range of mediums, remembering stories of ordinary yet powerful women and men from history and today who stood up for the rights of others.

As a playwright, Mary’s work includes the highly acclaimed The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII co-written with Paul Kennedy, Fiona Thompson and Féilim James;  A Beauty that will Pass; Constance and Her Friends – selected by President Michael D. Higgins for performance at Áras an Uachtaráin for Culture Night 2016;  In One Breath from the award-winning Testimonies(co-written with Paul Kennedy); and Shadow of My Soul, May Our Faces Haunt You and Silent Screams. 

Mary’s film work includes the hour-long documentary Stories from the Shadows, the short film Tell Them Our Names, inspired by women’s stories of WWII and selected for the London Eye International Film Festival and Kerry Film Festival, the creative documentary Women in an Equal Europe and the short film Courageous Women inspired by powerful women’s stories from the 1916 to 1923 decade of commemorations period in Irish history.  

Carla Ryan is an actor, singer and songwriter from Meath. She trained in TU Dublin’s Conservatory of Music and Drama and Columbia College Chicago studying Drama (Performance). She has been working with Smashing Times as an actor since 2016. Professional acting credits include Ettie in At Summers End, Nadine in Shadow of My Soul and Grace Gifford in Grace and Joe. Her performance of Grace and Joe for Constance and Her Friends by Mary Moynihan was hand selected by President Michael D. Higgins to be shown at Áras an Uachtarain for Culture Night 2016.

Carla is one half of the alt-pop duo ELKIN. Carla and best friend, Ellen were writing and singing together from the age of 15 before taking their music to a new level as ELKIN. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Joni Mitchell the duo began writing and performing folk-pop, but it wasn’t until they began working with producer lullahush that ELKIN blended their love of thought-provoking folk lyrics with fierce alt-pop production. ELKIN have played at venues and festivals across Ireland including Longitude and Electric Picnic.  Following the release of debut single Paro, ELKIN were named as one of State.ie’s Faces of 2018.  Their debut EP, Bad Habits, was released in May 2018. In February 2019, ELKIN released a new single Green Eyes, a collaboration with Æ MAK producer lullahush. In 2020 the duo were awarded funding from The First Music Contact Recording Stimulus Grant to record their debut EP Instant Hit, set for release early 2022.

Kwasie Boyce lives in Dundalk, County Louth. He was born and raised in Trinidad and later grew up in New York from his early teens. He found his calling as an actor and trained and performed with IMPACT Repertory Theatre Performance Company, Negro Ensemble Company and Theatre For the New City. He was drawn to theatre companies where Activism is at the core to the work they create and stories they tell.

He took part in many film projects including features in Vikings, Red Rock and Bloods.  He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Dundalk’s M.A.D. Youth Theatre and proud to say they are heading into their 10th Year. They have devised and produced award-winning plays and have a reputation for taking risk and not shying away from issues that young people want to talk about.  He works as a freelance drama facilitator in schools and various youth organisations and currently serves as Dundalk Youth Centre’s programme coordinator for PEACE IV Anticlockwise programme, where they use art as a tool to explore conflict, peace and reconciliation.

Lisa Mc Loughlin-Gnemmi is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, London where she received her B.Mus Hons degree. She is a lecturer in violin at the TU Dublin Conservatoire for Music and Drama. She gained her masters in performance at TU Dublin studying under Joanna Matkowska. She has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under conductors Alexander Anissimov, George Hurst and Gerhardt Markson. She also worked with Lyric Opera and The Irish Film Orchestra. She has regularly performed with the RTE Concert Orchestra.

Performances with the RTECO include a chamber music recital for the commemoration of the 1916 rising at The Irish Museum of Modern Art in the presence of An t-Uachtarán and with a group of members of the RTECO playing a new composition by Simon O’ Connor narrated by actress Olwen Fouéré. Other concerts included ‘Back to the Future’, ‘The Godfather’ with film music by Nino Rota, ‘The Music of John Williams’ film music and RTECO’s recording of the music of Steve Mc Keon for the film ‘Norm of the North’.

Lisa has performed at the Dublin Metropolis Festival, RDS and at The Button Factory, Temple Bar with DJ Kormac. Lisa has also toured France, South Africa and the US as solo violinist with Michael Flatley’s ‘Lord of the Dance’. Solo and chamber music recitals include DIT, Trinity College Dublin, The Goethe institute, UCD and The John Field Room, N.C.H. and The Galway Arts Festival.

Lisa recently performed at Dublin Castle for a production of ‘Constance and her Friends’ a play about Constance Markievicz and activists during the 1916 rising written by Mary Moynihan and performed by Smashing Times. Passionate about teaching as well as performing, Lisa gives masterclasses, prepares students for exams, recitals and Feis Ceoil competitions. Lisa is married to oboist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Sylvain Gnemmi. They have four children and live in Dublin.