Q&A with Frank McGuiness

Since his debut as a playwright with Baglady in the early 1980s, Frank McGuinness in his plays, poetry, and his adaptations of classics has interrogated common perceptions of “Irishness” mainly through the lens of sexuality, gender, and human bonding with which to confront public and private losses, often leading his characters to experience a catharsis. The interview is the revised version of the original conversation that took place in Frank McGuinness’s office at University College Dublin, in Summer 2010. Starting with a reflection on issues of sexuality and the Nation in his 1980s plays, McGuinness discusses his playwriting in tandem with his writing poetry, his life, and his faith in the power of love to overcome loss, despair, and isolation.