Mother Courage and Her Children at Black Box Theatre

What to Expect

Brecht’s Anna Fierling drags her cart across Europe through the Thirty Years’ War, selling to whichever army is passing and trying to keep her three children alive on the proceeds. The bitter engine of the play is that the war which feeds her business is the same war that takes them. Brecht wrote it in 1939 and it has not lost its argument about who profits from conflict and how religion gets used to justify it.

Blue Raincoat Theatre Company from Sligo bring their production to the Black Box for two nights, directed by Niall Henry. The company’s physical, precisely built house style suits Brecht’s demand that an audience watch rather than dissolve into the story. Running time is 100 minutes including an interval, which makes this a tighter staging than many. The Galway dates fall in the week of the city’s Halloween programming, so book early if you want a specific night.

Good to Know

• Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 October 2026 at the Black Box Theatre, Dyke Road, Galway City.
• Running time 100 minutes including an interval.
• Directed by Niall Henry for Blue Raincoat Theatre Company.
• Bertolt Brecht’s play about a canteen woman trading through the Thirty Years’ War.
• Ticket prices and nightly start times are not printed on the Town Hall Theatre listing, so confirm at booking.
• Booking through Town Hall Theatre at tht.ie.

Getting There

The Black Box Theatre sits on Dyke Road, fifteen minutes’ walk north of Eyre Square through Woodquay and past the Galway Sportsground. From Dublin and the midlands take the M6 then the N6 and follow the Headford Road in; from Limerick and Clare the M18 and N18 join the same approach. The venue has its own large car park on Dyke Road. City buses serve the Headford Road corridor and Ceannt Station is about twenty minutes on foot, so the trip works for anyone coming in by train from Athenry, Attymon, Woodlawn or Ballinasloe.