The Homecoming of Joseph Grace by Deirdre Kinahan

The Homecoming of Joseph Grace by Deirdre Kinahan

About the show

"An impressive, deeply felt performance" – The Irish Times

"[A] poignant story... touching drama [with] atmospheric staging" – The Guardian

"Murphy [is] a superstar" - Sunday Independent

A man sits by a body of water. His once good suit hangs loosely now on his bones. It is dawn. The early boat he has travelled on has just docked and his fellow bleary-eyed passengers disembark, swarming towards the city. In this near empty place he sits, unwilling or unable to set proper foot on Irish Soil.

From rural Meath to the battlefields of Europe, Casement’s Irish Brigade and the cabarets of Weimar Berlin, The Homecoming of Joseph Grace traces one extraordinary life shaped by exile, hidden love, and the possibility of coming home.

Acclaimed playwright Deirdre Kinahan (The Saviour, Spinning, Rathmines Road, These Halcyon Days) reunites with leading theatre director Louise Lowe to explore the city’s cultural history as a port and place of departure in creating an evocation of place, memory and mind.

A dance at life, it is a one-man play that takes the audience on an odyssey through otherness in deep rural Ireland, battle and imprisonment during World War I, meeting Roger Casement, visiting the great cabarets of Weimar Berlin and on through to a tentative homecoming after 50 years of exile.

As we sit with Joseph in an Irish ferry terminal, we sit with every refugee and every citizen of the world who is forced to flee in search of peace, happiness, love, home.

The Homecoming of Joseph Grace premiered at Cork Midsummer Festival from 12-20 June 2026.

Upcoming dates

This event runs on several dates — pick the one that suits you.

July 2026

  • Fri 17 · 00:00
  • Sat 18 · 20:00

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