Kilkenny Arts Festival 2025: Where We Bury the Bones

Photo by Simon Mills.

A bone will never speak its secrets – but perhaps it can sing them.

Created by multi-award-winners John McIlduff and Brian Irvine, Where We Bury the Bones is an intimate and challenging work of contemporary music theatre.

It begins with the discovery of a single bone, unearthed during the archaeological excavations that preceded the redevelopment of the Abbey Quarter in Kilkenny. From there it evolves into the unfolding of human civilisation: its religion, its industry, its skateboarders.

Where We Bury the Bones developed out of Carnival of Shadows: #1 Possible Human, a multi-sensory installation presented at KAF 2021. Combining music, voice, archive text, theatre, film and movement, this new work explores the way in which the stories we choose to tell often reveal more about ourselves than history itself.

The development of this work was supported by Creative Ireland.

Duration: 60 minutes.

Creative Team

Conceived and created by Dumbworld
Directed by John McIIduff
Music by Brian Irvine
Additional Text by Kate Heffernan
Design by Sabine Dargent
Sung by Megan O’Neill

Tickets

€25 / €22. Booking at Kilkenny Arts Festival.