Under the Hawthorn Tree

This Autumn, award-winning children’s theatre company Cahoots NI and the MAC present a new stage adaptation of Under the Hawthorn Tree.

Based on the internationally acclaimed book by award-winning author Marita Conlon-McKenna and published by The O’Brien Press, Under the Hawthorn Tree follows the journey of three brave siblings as they fight for survival during the Potato Famine in Ireland, 1845.


When their father goes to find work and their mother leaves to find him, Eily, Michael and Peggy, starving and faced with the workhouse, embark on a treacherous journey to find the great aunts they have heard of only in stories.

This remarkable story of endurance, in a defining moment of Irish experience, is told like never before in a new play by Charles Way, directed by Paul Bosco McEneaney with a stirring live original score from Garth McConaghie.