By Cara McHugh
From the wards of St Columba’s Hospital to the bright lights of the Hawk’s Well Theatre,
Gerry Farrell has spent more than five decades telling stories – sometimes through
counselling, sometimes through comedy, and often through both at once.
The Manorhamilton native, now living in Sligo town, has become one of the North
West’s most recognisable theatre figures, known for his one-man performances, historical
plays and his ability to blend humour with deeply human themes. Yet alongside his long
acting career, Farrell also built a parallel life working in mental health services,
psychotherapy and dementia care.
That unique combination of experiences has shaped much of his recent work, particularly
his acclaimed one-man show I Had to Go for Counselling, which sold out two nights at
Hawk’s Well Theatre and has since toured venues across Ireland.
Speaking to the Sligo Weekender, Farrell reflects on a life spent balancing theatre and
psychiatry, the courage of historical figures, and why the arts community in Sligo
continues to inspire him.
“I started off in St Columba’s Hospital, the mental health services here in Sligo, as a
psychiatric nurse,” he explains. “Then I subsequently studied psychotherapy and ended
up teaching that for a while in Trinity College Dublin and then teaching applied social
care in the IT in Sligo as well.”
Over the years, he worked across a wide variety of areas including addiction services,
adolescent psychiatry and eating disorders. It was almost by accident, however, that he
found himself working with dementia patients – an area that would later become
particularly important to him.
“I was asked to fill in on the dementia unit,” he says. “When I started working there, I
started to develop these techniques. It wasn’t designed, to be honest with you. It was
more that it came to me.”
Today, Farrell still trains nurses, carers and families in practical dementia care
techniques, many of them based around “validation therapy” – approaches designed to
reduce distress and confusion for patients.
He gives one example.
“You might have a woman at three o’clock in the morning whose mother is saying, ‘I’m
going home.’ The daughter knows if she says, ‘You are at home,’ things will get worse.
So instead, you validate the person and say, ‘Okay, let’s go home,’ and then gently
distract them until they settle.”
Interestingly, Farrell says some of the techniques he developed in mental health care were
influenced by his theatre background.
“A lot of the techniques were based on some of the stuff I would have done in drama as
well,” he says.
That love of drama began early.
Farrell credits his teachers at the Comprehensive School in Manorhamilton for first
encouraging his interest in acting, particularly teacher and director Prin Duignan, who
remains a close friend and collaborator to this day.
“My first part was in 1971 in Yeats’s Kathleen Ni Houlihan,” he recalls. “I’ve been in
plays every year since then.”
The theatre quickly became more than just a hobby. While working in challenging
psychiatric settings, Farrell says acting became a kind of release.
“It was what we call in psychotherapy a transcendent function,” he explains. “It gave me
an energy that I could do my work without getting stressed out.”
His long association with the Hawk’s Well Theatre stretches back to the 1980s. One of
his earliest performances there was playing Gar Private in Philadelphia, Here I Come!,
directed by the late Liam McKinney.
Soon after, Farrell’s fascination with the works of James Joyce led him to create what
would become his first one-man show.
During annual Bloomsday trips to Dublin in the 1980s, Farrell would read extracts from
Ulysses alongside well-known Joycean scholar David Norris and actor Eamon Morrissey.
“David Norris said to me, ‘You should make a show of that,’” Farrell remembers.
That suggestion led to Blooming Ulysses, a one-man adaptation based on Joyce’s famous
novel, first performed 40 years ago and still touring today. The show brought Farrell on
two tours of the United States, including performances at Yale University and venues
stretching from Syracuse to Florida and Kansas.
“You couldn’t make these things happen,” he says with a laugh. “I absolutely loved
America.”
While Farrell has spent years acting in productions by companies including Beezneez
Theatre Company, he has also established himself as a playwright in his own right.
Working closely with director Prin Duignan and Splodar Theatre Company, Farrell wrote
three ambitious historical plays: The First Protestant, based on Martin Luther; The Last
Prime Minister of Ireland, centred on David Lloyd George and the Anglo-Irish Treaty;
and The Sceptical Suffragette, which explored the lives of the Pankhurst sisters.
Farrell says the historical research behind those productions could take years.
For The Last Prime Minister of Ireland, he and his wife travelled to Wales and visited
archives to study Lloyd George’s papers firsthand.
“What fascinates me is the psychology of these people,” he says. “They went against the
grain of the time. They had courage.”
That interest in psychology and character is also central to I Had to Go for Counselling,
the show that unexpectedly became one of Farrell’s biggest successes.
The idea first emerged while Farrell was giving a talk on mental health to retired teachers
at The Model in Sligo.
“In the middle of it, it just occurred to me – this could actually be a one-man show,” he
says.
The production follows a retired teacher struggling with depression and reluctantly
attending counselling. Through humour and reflection, the character revisits regrets,
relationships and life lessons.
Farrell admits parts of the script are semi-autobiographical.
“I think it just resonates with people,” he says. “I would have had no idea it would
become as successful as it was.”
His wife also unknowingly contributed to the writing process. Wanting to make the main
character a keen gardener, Farrell asked her to explain what she had been doing in the
garden and typed down her descriptions word-for-word.
“People who know me said, ‘He didn’t write that himself,’” he jokes.
Last year also brought another major honour when Farrell was named Leitrim Guardian
Person of the Year for 2026 – an award recognising his contribution to theatre, mental
health and community life.
“I was overwhelmed,” he says. “I grew up in Manorhamilton seeing people get that
award. I never imagined I’d be in the same category.”
At the ceremony in Carrick-on-Shannon, speakers from both the HSE and the theatre
world paid tribute to Farrell’s decades of work.
“It was like being at my own wake,” he laughs. “I didn’t realise I was held in the regard I
was.”
One of the proudest moments of the evening, he says, was having his grandchildren there
– although one young grandchild delivered an honest assessment of the family hierarchy.
“He said, ‘Granddad is funny, but nanny is clever.’”
Farrell is far from slowing down.
He is currently rehearsing a new comedy called HOQIA, which stands for Heck Of A
Quality Inspection Assured – a light-hearted satire inspired by healthcare inspections by
HIQA and described by Farrell as “Father Ted for the health services”.
The show will premiere at the Hawk’s Well in July before touring elsewhere.
He has also already booked another production, Revision, for October 2027.
That confidence, Farrell says, comes largely from the encouragement he receives from
the team at the Hawk’s Well Theatre.
“The culture there now is so conducive to creativity,” he says. “When you go into the
Hawk’s Well, everything is possible.”
For Farrell, that spirit of collaboration and support continues to fuel his creativity after
more than 50 years on stage.
And whether he is counselling families, researching historical figures or making
audiences laugh through one-man performances, the thread running through all of it is
ultimately the same: understanding people.
“I’m interested in people who have courage,” he says. “That’s what always fascinates
me.”
