The Anglo-Celt 2025 Arts Review- SallyAnn Duffy

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The crew from Granny Jackson’s Wake.

Damian McCarney

Published: Tue 30 Dec 2025, 11:43 AM

Last updated: Tue 30 Dec 2025, 12:55 PM

SallyAnn Duffy

Visual artist and arts facilitator

Best Cavan Event: Granny Jackson’s Wake (Big Telly Theatre Company), an immersive drama as part of the Cavan Arts Festival and The Art of Life Project.The Art of Life is a community project that uses creativity to help people talk more openly about death and dying. It encourages people to think ahead, make plans for the end of life, and share these plans with their loved ones.

One to watch: James O’Donnell (Dirty Mac Theatre), Director, Playwright and Acting Coach. He creates dramas in unusual settings for example ‘The Story of Johnny B’ A WW1 drama written by Peter Lamacq (script edited by Sally-Ann Duffy) which was performed in the trenches at Cavan County Museum as part of the event that reopened the Trench Experience in September 2025.

Best film: All Quiet On The Western Front (2022) - Director Edward Berger’s harrowing film about a German soldier’s journey during WW1.

Best TV: Say Nothing, Channel 4, A TV drama based on the murders and crimes during ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland based on the book by Patrick Radden Keefe.

Best theatre: ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at Bord Gais Theatre.

Best podcast: ‘We Need To Talk’, with Paul Brunson, I love listening to the lives and the drama of celebrities and others. He appears to really get to the truth of a person’s life.