Smashing Times Theatre Company – About Us

Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd is a professional theatre company involved in professional performance, training and participation. The work of the company is underpinned by a rights-based approach and a commitment to artistic excellence and social engagement. The company has four high profile patrons – Maeve Binchy, Brian Friel, Tim Pat Coogan and Robert Kee. Smashing Times Theatre is supported by Dublin City Council Arts Office.

The company was established in 1991by a group of women actors, who met at the Focus Theatre, Dublin.

Smashing Times – Theatre for Change
Performance, Training, Participation

Smashing Times are committed to:

• Professional Performance

• Professional training and education in drama and theatre

• Participatory theatre practice – supporting direct access for local communities and communities of interest

• Theatre for change – Supporting the use of theatre as a form of knowledge and as a means of transforming society so as to promote social justice and equality

• Links & research between professional & participatory theatre within Ireland and on an international basis
  

The company has four high profile patrons – Maeve Binchy, Brian Friel, Tim Pat Coogan and Robert Kee.

Smashing Times Theatre Company - Who We Are

Directors/Board of Management:
Dr Patricia Kennedy, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, School of Applied Social Science, University College Dublin. (Company Secretary of Smashing Times Theatre Company).

Dr Eric Weitz, Head of Drama, School of Drama, Film and Music, Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College, Dublin. (Chairperson of Smashing Times Theatre Company)

Dr. Ciara Mc Mahon, General Medical Practitioner and Visual Artist

Finola O’ Riagain, Accredited Mediator

Patrons:
Brian Friel, Tim Pat Coogan, Maeve Binchy and Robert Kee.

Staff / Artists:
Artistic Director: Mary Moynihan
Company Manager: Freda Manweiler
Advisory Artistic Board: Margaret Toomey, Mary Moynihan, Gillian Hackett, Eric Weitz.

Associate Artists:
Gillian Hackett
Margaret Toomey
Carol Walsh
Ena May
Therese Mullan
Bibbi Larsson
Aoife Reilly
Irene White
Chrissie Poulter
Andy Hinds
Catherine Mc Fadden
Paul Nolan
Sinead O’Loughlin
Kate Harris
Sian Thompson.

Smashing Times Theatre Company has partnerships and connections with the following organisations:

• The Samaritans
• The Irish Association of Suicidology
• The Irish Peace Centres including Corrymeela Community, Belfast
  
• The Mid-Ulster Women’s Network
• The Balor Arts Centre, Donegal
• Plain Speaking Community Theatre, Omagh
• Daughters of Charity Community Services programme and HACE, Dublin
• Dublin Docklands Development Authority and two primary schools St. Joseph’s National School, East Wall and City Quay National School, City Quay; both in Dublin.
• University College Dublin
• Focus Theatre Dublin
• Perinola Productions
  

Panel of Advisors: Acting for the Future
Acting for the Future is implemented in association with the Irish Association of Suicidology and the Samaritans with assistance from a Panel of Advisors. The Panel of Advisors is as follows: Dr John Connolly, Irish Association of Suicidology; Dr Ella Arensman, Researcher, National Suicide Research Foundation; Maggie Hayden, Samaritans; and Karen Ward, Holistic Psychotherapist. For Smashing Times Theatre Company: Mary Moynihan, Freda Manweiler and Gillian Hackett. The counselors for this project are: Karen Ward, Gerry Farrelly and Eimear Burke.

Panel of Advisors: Creative Training
Heather Floyd, Community Arts Forum (C.A.F.); Brian Mullen, Community Relations Council; Brian Harten, Louth County Council; Deirdre Toomey, Ennis CDP; Eric Weitz, Trinity College Dublin; Chrissie Poulter, Trinity College Dublin; Ivan Armstrong, (Formerly) Arts Council of Northern Ireland; Katherine Atkinson, CREATE; Mary Moynihan for Smashing Times Theatre Company Ltd

Panel of Advisors: Addressing Diversity through Drama
Ciara McFarlane, Secondary School Programme Worker, Corrymeela Community, Belfast; Carol Walsh, Drama Facilitator, Mary Moynihan artist and Freda Manweiler, Company Manager, Smashing Times Theatre Company; Margaret McKernan, Feile an Phobal, Belfast.

Dr Patricia Kennedy is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the School of Applied Social Science at University College Dublin. Prior to joining UCD in 1995, she was employed in both Ireland and Britain as a youth and community worker. She has written extensively on motherhood and maternity policies in Ireland. Her areas of interest include conceptual and theoretical approaches to social policy, feminist theory and women‘s health and labour market participation and diversity. Her books include Maternity in Ireland: a Woman-centred Perspective, (2002), Dublin. The Liffey Press, Dublin; Motherhood in Ireland; Creation and Context (editor) (2004), Cork. The Mercier Press. She has co-edited several book in the UCD Press Series, including: Contemporary Irish Social Policy. Dublin (2005 and 1999); Theorizing Irish Social Policy, (2004) Irish Social Policy in Context (1999). She has undertaken research and published on domestic violence, the needs of refugee and asylum seekers, women’s health, and the criminal justice system.

She has represented the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) on the North Eastern Health Board Review Group of the Maternity Services in the North Eastern Health Board (2001-2002) and is currently on the North Eastern Health Services Executive Task Force on Maternity Services. She was the Irish representative on COST A13 Transitions in the Labour Market, EU Research Network Gender Advisory Group. She has acted as an assessor for Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC). She is a board member of Smashing Times Theatre Company and WOVe, Women Overcoming Violent Experiences. She is the Liaison person between UCD and Hope Alaska Volunteer Programme.

Eric Weitz is Lecturer in Drama Studies at the School of Drama, Film and Music, Trinity College, Dublin.He lectures occasionally in the Drama Studies Centre at University College Dublin and is a board member of Smashing Times Theatre Company Limited. He is also a performing member of Tapestry tap-dance company in Dublin. Eric has a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Theatre from Boston University, and an MA in Modern Drama Studies from University College Dublin and a PhD in Theatre Studies from Trinity College, Dublin.

Ciara Mc Mahon, M.B., B.Ch., B.O.A., B.A., F.P.C., D.C.H., M.I.C.G.P.
Ciara has an MB, Bch, BAO from Trinity College Dublin. She subsequently became a member of both the Irish College of General Practioners and the Royal College or General Practice. She trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist at the Tivoli Institute in Dun Laoghaire. She has also lectured on the Royal College of Surgeons Vocational Training Scheme, Dublin as an assistant programme director. She has practised as a general practitioner in a Dublin suburb for the past 10 years, returning to college in 2005.

At present Ciara is in her fourth year of a double degree in Fine Art Practice and Art History, at the NCAD.

Ciara's most recent artistic work was a collaborative, participatory event/performance/art work in the Separation Unit of Mountjoy Prison. The work incorporated a soundscape, inkjet photographic prints with collaborative performances by male inmates. Previous works include 2WayMirror, a web-based multimedia project, and a collaborative installation for the board room of the Dublin Rape Crisis Center (D.R.C.C.). She has exibited in Cork (LaydFest 2008), and the Royal College of Art (London- group show).

She was the co-organiser for a symposium entitled 'Art or Philosophy' in April 2008 at NCAD.

Finola O'Riagain is an accredited practitioner member and a former board member and treasurer of the Mediators Institute of Ireland 1998 – 2000. Finola O'Riagain, MA, NUI, has been a member of AIM Family Services since 1986 and during that time has served a number of terms on the Board including as Treasurer.  With a background in research, she was responsible for the preparation and presentation of the AIM annual statistics from 1989 to 1995 (the only marriage breakdown research in Ireland at that time). AIM Family Services, a charitable organisation, has been providing legal information for people with family difficulties, particularly marital breakdown since 1972. The organisation has been providing a mediation service for married and unmarried couples since 1992 and a counselling service for individuals and couples since 1998.

Artist Biographies:

Mary Moynihan – Artistic Director and Theatre Consultant
Mary is a theatre director, writer, drama facilitator and trainer. She lectures in drama and theatre studies for the Bachelor of Arts in Drama (performance) at the Conservatory of Music and Drama, Dublin Institute of Technology where she teaches the Stanislavski system of actor training, Augusto Boal and Michael Chekhov techniques, movement and drama facilitation and directs final year performances. She is a founding member and current Artistic Director of Smashing Times Theatre Company Limited and an associate director/artist with the Focus Theatre and a member of the Focus play reading panel. She also conducts an actor’s studio at Focus theatre using the Stanislavski system of actor training.

Mary originally trained as an actor and director at Focus under the direction of Deirdre O’Connell, her friend and mentor. Mary has an honours M.A., in Film Production from the Dublin Institute of Technology and an honours B.A. in Drama and Theatre Studies from the University of Dublin Trinity College.

Professional directing credits include In One Breath for Smashing Times Theatre; Olga from Picasso’s Women by Brian McAvera for Focus Theatre, Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams, Mill Theatre Dundrum, Two Rooms by Lee Blessing for Focus Theatre, Talk To Me Like The Rain and Let Me Listen . . by Tennessee Williams, Focus Theatre, May Our Faces Haunt You (nationwide tour), A Chain of Hands (Royal Hibernian Academy), Medea (Smashing Times on nationwide tour), and Yerma and Riders to the Sea (Samuel Beckett Theatre). She was assistant director to Bairbre Ni Chaoimh for Very Heaven at Focus.

As a playwright, Mary’s work includes the highly acclaimed Testimonies (co-written with Paul Kennedy), May Our Faces Haunt You, Out of the Outside and Silent Screams. She is the author of a chapter titled Death of a Mother for Motherhood In Ireland, edited by Dr Patricia Kennedy, Department of Social Policy, UCD and printed by Mercier Press (2003). She co-authored a chapter titled Laughing Together: Community-based theatre’s vital sense of humour for Comedy in Contemporary Irish Theatre, edited by Eric Weitz, lecturer in Drama, University of Dublin, Trinity College and printed by Carysfort Press (2004).

Mary co-designed the drama workshop model for Acting for the Future – a project using drama and theatre to promote positive mental health and suicide prevention – and is involved in curriculum design, tutoring and assessment for Acting for Peace - Creative Training in Drama and Theatre accredited through UCD. She has extensive experience in using drama and theatre to promote peace building and reconciliation work and to promote anti-racism work. Mary’s vision is for a theatre of passion and truth that explores human relationships and engages audiences imaginatively and emotionally. Mary is passionate about using drama and theatre practice to explore a range of issues and to promote social justice and equality.

Freda Manweiler - Company Manager
Freda has worked with Smashing Times Theatre Company since 1999. She is highly skilled in management and project coordination and implementation. She has worked as producer on a range of Smashing Time projects throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland. She is Course Coordinator of the Smashing Times cross border and cross community Creative Training programmes which are accredited by the National University of Ireland / University College Dublin. She is coordinator of the highly successful Acting For The Future programme that uses drama and theatre to promote positive mental health and suicide prevention and is run in association with the Samaritans and the Irish Association of Sucidiology in the Republic of Ireland and more recently in Northern Ireland.

As part of her work for Smashing Times she is responsible for all aspects of management and project development and is also involved in teaching practice. She has experience in planning, coordination, staff training, preparing, monitoring and tracking budgets (both large and small scale), managing partnership arrangements, monitoring publicity campaigns and conducting internal evaluations and liaison with external evaluators and funders.

She has extensive experience in team management through her work with Smashing Times as a manager and as a manager and Employment Assessment Coordinator for a Working Skills Centre in Toronto, Canada, a community-based, employment assessment, skills training and upgrading centre for immigrant women. She has extensive experience working with immigrant women including programme development and implementation, individual and group career counselling, as well as developing, expanding and delivering group workshops on topics such as accessing community resources and training programmes, human rights issues, labour laws, and participating in the political system. Many of the women Freda worked with experience trauma due to war, torture, political persecution and family violence and she was responsible for providing counselling around these and other settlement issues. Education includes a Bachelor in Social Work (2007) from the Open University and she is currently completing an MA in Education from the National University of Ireland/UCD.

Gillian Hackett – Actor, Writer and Drama Facilitator
Gillian began her drama career acting and devising theatre with Team Educational Theatre Company in 1976 and then went on to act and direct in the Focus Theatre, Dublin and with a variety of other companies acting in stage and film. She joined Smashing Times Theatre Company in 1991 when it was founded, initially as a board member, and has since gone on to work as a writer, director, actor and drama facilitator for the company. She has been involved as a trainer, director and writer for the Creative Training programme run by Smashing Times Theatre Company in association with the Mid-Ulster Women’s Network and University College Dublin, the accrediting body, specializing in the use of drama and theatre to promote peace and reconciliation. She is a trained mediator. She has been involved with the Smashing Times Acting for the Future programme since its inception and works as a drama facilitator and actor for this project conducting drama workshops to promote positive mental health and suicide prevention with schools and local communities.

Carol Walsh – Drama Facilitator and Actor
Carol is a graduate of the prestigious Jacque Lecoq physical theatre School at the London International School of Performing Arts. Jacque Lecoq was one of the most inspirational theatre teachers of our age and his international theatre school where Carol trained remains an unrivalled centre for the art of physical theatre. Carol is trained in physical theatre work; mask work; improvisation and gesture. Carol also trained with Smashing Times Theatre Company as a professional drama facilitator completing the Creative Training in Drama programme accredited by UCD. She has completed the National Association of Youth Drama’s qualification for working in facilitation. Carol will provide training in Jacques Lecoq techniques for the participants as well as incorporating those techniques into the final performance. Carol is a performer, writer and director who has spent several years working as a drama facilitator with adult and youth community groups, schools, youth theatres and colleges. This work has involved introducing groups to drama, devising, writing and directing pieces for public performance. Carol works as an actor/creator on original pieces of theatre. Recent work includes a piece about the myth of Hades and Persephone with a physical theatre ensemble at The Lab in Dublin’s Foley Street.

Bibbi Larsson – Actor
Bibbi trained at the Gaiety School of Acting, the Performance Year and at the Stanislavski Saturday Studio at the Focus Theatre. Bibbi is delighted to work and be involved with Smashing Times Theatre Company. She has played the part of Helen in the highly acclaimed Testimonies presented by Smashing Times Theatre Company at the Helix Theatre, the New Theatre and on nationwide tour. For Smashing Times she has also appeared as Jarmina, Aid worker and Hasiba in May Our Faces Haunt You and as Rose and Woman in Out of the Outside. Other theatre work includes Madame X in The Stranger at the International Bar Janine in Lonely Hearts at The Pavilion, The Civic and An Draiocht (Observatory Lane); Polina in a musical adaption of The Seagull (Wonderland Productions at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2004); Olga in Three Sisters at the New Theatre and The Players (Red Dress Theatre Company) and Philomela in Three Birds at T36 (NUVO Theatre Company).   

Irene White – Drama Facilitator
Irene is a lecturer in the School of Education Studies, Dublin City University where she is coordinator of the Graduate Diploma in Education programme, a teacher training programme for second level teachers in Ireland. Having worked for many years as a teacher of English and Drama in the second level system, Irene trains teachers in classroom management strategies and teaching and learning methodologies. Irene is a member of the Programme Board in DCU and an examiner with the State Exams Commission.

Irene has an extensive background in drama with both academic and practical training in theatre. She has an honours MA in Drama from Queen’s University Belfast, she has trained in the Stanislavski system at The Focus Theatre Dublin and recently completed a Diploma in drama facilitation skills with Smashing Times Theatre Company and UCD. Irene works as a freelance drama facilitator and director with amateur, community and professional theatre companies. Recent professional experience includes Assistant Director with Upstate Theatre Project on Hades (2006), At Peace (2007), and I Love Mullaghmatt (2008), Facilitator and Director with Upstate Theatre Project for Times Hands (2006) and Midland (2007). Irene has also worked as Assistant Director with Fishamble, Tall Tales, Focus Theatre and Coalface; and as Stage Manager for Focus Theatre and DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama. Irene is a member of the Board of Upstate Theatre Project and a member of LitLab, a support association for new and experienced writers.

Chrissie Poulter – Drama Facilitator, Director, Devisor and Trainer
Chrissie is a director, devisor and trainer. A founder member of Jubilee Community Arts (now The Public) in 1974, Chrissie went on to teach at Birmingham University for 7 years (1979 – 86), leaving to be Drama Officer and later Deputy Director for Yorkshire Arts (funding agency for Yorkshire – now part of the English Arts Council). Returning to education as Head of Expressive Arts at Accrington and Rossendale College she came to Ireland in 1990 to take up her current post as lecturer in the School of Drama at Trinity College Dublin.

She was co-director and founder of Art slab (Ireland) (1997) an interdisciplinary, intercultural arts laboratory engaged in local/international collaborations. Projects took place around Ireland as well as in Poland, Greece, France, Italy, Spain and the UK. Invited to advise the Northern Ireland Arts Council on the development of community arts in Belfast in 1979, Chrissie became increasingly involved in training community drama leaders around that city and it was for them that she wrote her first book, Playing The Game, a recipe book of theatre games (later published by MacMillans,1987, now Palgrave)

Since 2001 her focus has been on borders and disputed territories. In 2001 and 2002 this centred on intra-lingual performance, created in response to performers’ engagement with text, landscape and mother tongue. Two performance pieces were commissioned by and created at the Roy Hart Voice Centre in France. In 2004 a similar “performance essay” was created and presented as part of Lille’s year as European city of Culture. These projects evolved through a process of performed response to inputs - The Roy Hart work was inspired by Beckett, the Lille project by Frank McGuinness’ Someone Who’ll Watch over me and the story of Scheherazade. All these pieces involved singing and were in some way site-specific. In 2001/2/3 some of the artists from the Roy Hart project collaborated on a series of projects with young people in their respective homelands - Kerry, Enniskillen, Bera de Bidasoa (Navarre) and Toroella de Montgris (Catalunia). This also linked in with My Voice Theatre from Bushwick in the Bronx, (New York).

During 2003/4/5 Chrissie was mentoring a pool of 30 actors/film-makers and painters designing and delivering a cross-border schools-exchange peace project in Ireland for Co-operation Ireland. The emphasis here has been on intra-art collaboration, actors working with visual artists (painters and film-makers). During 2004/5 and into 2006/7 she is developing a parallel project with the Stamsund International Theatre Festival and Teater Nor on the Lofoten Islands, off the coast of Norway. Her collaborator in this is visual artist Kate Buckley, who was a collaborative artist with Artslab in the 90s.

Chrissie’s most recent collaboration was with Lizbeth Goodman’s SMARTlab on the project “Streets Called Home” commissioned by the UN World Summit Awards and performed in Tunisia at the 2005 Summit on the Information Society. Chrissie was local choreographer in Tunis, contributing director in Ireland and contributor of some of the video footage used in the final performance.

Chrissie’s earlier directing work in Ireland includes One Big Bed (Nell MCafferty) for Point Fields, Belfast; My Love, My Umberella (Kevin O’Connell) and New Composers Shorts for Opera Theatre Company (for whom she also led a week-long acting for opera singers workshop, funded by Gulbenkian); The Quest – a rural arts project linking nine villages in Co Down; Dockers (Martin Lynch)- expanded to include a cast of over 30 and performed in the old docks; and a number of other youth and community shows.

Her work centres on the application of theatre arts to non-theatre contexts and vice versa - the application of what is learnt from such a process back into the world of professional theatre practice. Chrissie is increasingly asked to apply her work to the public, private and voluntary sectors. She has been a senior manager, consultant, chair of numerous committees and was a member of the Northern Ireland Arts Council for 6 years in the 1990s. She is currently a board member of IETM (Informal European Theatre Meeting), a network of over 400 theatre and dance producers/directors/programmers from 40 countries.

Andy Hinds – Drama Facillitator
Andy ia a successful theatre director, acting teacher and writer. Derry born Andy Hinds has had many successful theatre and opera productions over the years with all the main theatre companies in the country including Druid, Abbey, Gate, Lyric, Red Kettle, Charabanc, Storytellers and Wexford Opera. Productions over the years include ‘The Bacchae’; ‘Macbeth’; ‘As You Like It’; ‘The Winter’s Tale’; ‘Fidelio’; ‘La Cenerentola’; ‘Mother Courage’; ‘The Revenger’s Tragedy’; ‘The Government Inspector’; All’s Well That Ends Well; and Twelfth Night. His highly successful production for Druid of Wild Harvest won A Bank of Ireland/ RTE Arts show award. Andy has been Associate Director of the Bristol Old Vic with their long tradition of high quality productions of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Restoration repertoire. He has had an ongoing association with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London where for many years he taught and directed their classic productions in the course of which he worked closely with some of the most distinguished classical acting teachers in the world. Also for RADA he created and taught their three-month ‘International Acting Shakespeare Course’ for professional actors, directors and academics from all over the world.

In Dublin for the last fourteen years he has specialised in the training of young and experienced actors in the performing of classical texts (at The Gaiety School, Trinity College, and in the highly successful Classic Stage Ireland Classical Acting Studio). He also lectures on classic European Theatre on the MA course at the Drama Studies Centre at UCD. He founded and ran ‘Open House Theatre Project’, a Dublin-based project which, over two and a half years, offered training to a number of young Irish Directors North and South of the border. His first two plays, October Song and The Starving have been performed professionally in England and Ireland and have recently been published. He is a founding member and currently Artistic Director of Classic Stage Ireland. The company is based on the campus of DCU. The founding of Classic Stage Ireland is regarded by commentators as one of the most important developments in the cultural life of the country in recent times. Classic Stage Ireland presents regular productions of the world classics to Irish audiences and offers ongoing training to younger and more established actors in the specific skills required to perform and stage such works.

Catherine Mc Fadden – Drama Facilitator
Catherine works with various community groups as a drama facilitator: at the Star Project, at St Mochta’s National School with fourth class students, and at Cheeverstown House with intellectually disabled adults. She has also worked with the HURT group in Northern Ireland and with St Vincent’s Trust. Catherine has directed The Room by Harold Pinter (Players Theatre, TCD) and What Where by Samuel Beckett & One for the Road by Pinter (Granary Theatre, Cork). She founded Tardy Lasso Productions in 2005 with a production of Getting Attention by Martin Crimp for the Dublin Fringe Festival at Players Theatre. In recent years, she has directed Party Time/Precisely/The New World Order by Harold Pinter at Andrews Lane Studio and Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman at Players Theatre. Catherine has also directed/performed in three productions for Amnesty International Ireland, the most recent being A Footprint of Roses by Elaine Desmond for Amnesty International Zimbabwe Group. She also worked as an assistant director on What Happened Bridgie Cleary by Tom McIntyre in the Peacock theatre.

Counsellors:

Karen Ward is the Holistic Therapist on RTE’s successful The Health Squad. She has an Honours Science degree from UCD and her many holistic therapies include Psychotherapy and Stress Management Counselling, Reflexology and Aromatherapy Massage. Karen is a Hatha Yoga teacher, a Body Sculpting and Pilates Instructor and a Holistic Dietician and Nutritionist. Karen is an established lecturer and facilitator of one-off motivational and inspiring seminars on a variety of holistic health subjects (Stress Management, Yoga at your Desk, Parenting Skills, Relaxation Techniques, Weight Management). Karen runs her own clinic in Smithfield, Dublin and in Sportsco, Dublin 4.

Gerry Farrelly: a systemic psychotherapist and Family Therapist trained to masters level, and works for the HSE in this role. Gerry is also a registered psychiatric nurse. He holds a degree in business studies and is currently studying for a higher diploma in Clinical Supervision at Department of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin. Gerry is a member of The Family Therapy Association of Ireland {chair person} (FTAI), Irish Council of Psychotherapy (ICP), European Association of Psychotherapy (EAP), Association of Family Therapy UK (AFT) An Bord Altranais. Gerry achieved a diploma in Theatre and Drama Studies at Maynooth University. His involvement in community and amateur drama spans two decades and he has won numerous awards for directing and acting on the amateur circuit. He also held the position of artistic director and workshop facilitator in Monaghan Youth Theatre for ten years where he oversaw many tours and directed many of their productions. Issue based workshops and devised performances are his specialist interest with many cross border drama initiatives undertaken. A momentous performance of ‘The Pilgrimage’ - a poignant play for a poignant time - at the Lyric Theatre on the day of the Northern Ireland peace agreement known as ‘The Good Friday Agreement’, as part of the BT Connections festival lingers as one of the Youth Theatres’ high moments. Gerry is delighted to be involved in the Smashing Times Theatre Acting For The Future initiative.

Eimear Burke has worked for sixteen years as a counselling psychologist in private practice with individuals, couples and groups. She is also a lecturer in the Development Studies Centre, Kimmage Manor, Dublin and MSTCDC, Arusha, Tanzania. She has consulted to a wide range of organisations both in Ireland and overseas in the areas of personal effectiveness and well – being, stress management, group dynamics, assertiveness, counselling skills, supervisory skills, leadership, team-building and conflict management. She has also provided Employee Assistance programmes to a number of multi-national companies.