The Beauty Queen of Leenane was first presented as a Druid Theatre/Royal Court Theatre co-production in January 1996 The play won the George Devine Award, the Writer's Guild Award, the Critic's Circle Award, and Martin McDonagh received the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright The production transferred to New York and was nominated for six Tony Awards, of which it won four An AQA AS/AEnglish Literature set text 'McDonagh's writing is pitiless but compassionate: he casts a cold, hard, but understanding eye on relationships made of mistrust, hesitation, resentment and malevolence' Sunday Times

The Beauty Queen of Leenane was first presented as a Druid Theatre/Royal Court Theatre co-production in January 1996. Set in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative ageing mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific.