Ian R. Walsh is Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at University of Galway. He has published in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections. Books include Contemporary Irish Theatre: Histories and Theories (Palgrave, 2024) co-written with Charlotte McIvor, ‘Staging Europe at the Gate’, special issue of Review of Irish Studies in Europe, 4.1 (2021) co-edited with Siobhán O’Gorman and Elaine Sisson. Cultural Convergence: The Dublin Gate Theatre, 1928-1960 (Palgrave, 2021) co-edited with Ondrej Pilny and Ruud van den Beuken. The Theatre of Enda Walsh (Peter Lang, 2019) co-edited with Mary Caulfield; Experimental Irish Theatre: After W.B Yeats (Palgrave, 2012).  From 2019-2022 Ian was PI for University of Galway on Circus ++ which developed the first international  BA in Youth and Social Circus (Erasmus +). From 2019-2023 he was the PI for the monitoring and evaluation of Wires Crossed (Creative Europe) and from 2023-24 evaluator for Circus Trans-Formation Advanced (Erasmus +).

This paper examines the history and growing popularity of community circus in Ireland analysing its social appeal, inclusive ethos and positive effects on young people and marginalised communities by drawing on the research of Ilaria Bessone, Stephen Cadwell, Jennifer Beth Spiegel and Benjamin Ortiz Choukroun in the area of youth and social circus research. It is argued that community circus in Ireland through its collectivism has the potential to offer a ‘post-neoliberal vision’ ( Spiegel and Choukroun) by resisting the effects of neoliberalism as characterised by Michel Foucault where interpersonal relationships are conceived in terms of transaction and citizenship is discarded in favour of subjects who are ‘entrepreneurs of themselves’. The paper also addresses how the practice of circus arts challenges enduring postcolonial frameworks of analysis in Irish theatre scholarship and teaching which include the prominence of playwriting, language and national identity. It does this through its embodied practice, emphasis on performance process, and freedom from direct narrative storytelling. As a result the form of circus practice is made exceptional and marginal within narrow conceptions of Irish theatre and performance and has been excluded from much of the scholarship in this area.