Fiach Mac Conghail
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Fiach Mac Conghail | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Mac Conghail in 2011 | |
| Senator | |
| In office 25 May 2011 – 8 June 2016 | |
| Constituency | Nominated by the Taoiseach |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 4 August 1964 Dublin, Ireland |
| Party | Independent |
| Spouse | Bríd Ní Neachtain |
| Children | 2 |
Fiach Mac Conghail (born 4 August 1964) is CEO of the Digital Hub Development Agency.[1] He is a former director of the Abbey Theatre from 2005 to 2016.[2] He is a former Senator from 2011 to 2016 and was appointed by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny.[3][4]
His father, Muiris Mac Conghail, was a filmmaker and broadcaster who served as Government Press Secretary and was Controller of Programmes at RTÉ; his mother is a noted genealogist. Mac Conghail was raised in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar and attended Coláiste Eoin and later Trinity College Dublin, where he studied Economics and Politics.[2][5][6]
Career in the arts
Mac Conghail was the artistic director at the Project Arts Centre from 1992 to 1999.[7][8] He was the Director of Ireland's participation at the Expo 2000 world fair and acted as Cultural Programme Commissioner during the Irish Presidency of the European Union in 2004.[9] With his brother Cuan, he established the production company Brother Films in 1996.[5]
Mac Conghail was a special adviser to the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue from 2002 to 2005. In 2005, he was appointed as Director of the Abbey Theatre.[10]
When Mac Conghail announced his 2016 programme, "Waking the Nation", for the centennial year of the 1916 Rising, a storm ensued. Only one of the ten plays on the programme was written by a woman and only three directed by women. This sparked a campaign called "Waking the Feminists" to demand gender equality in theatre. Mac Conghail acknowledged that he had "failed to check his privilege".[11]