Úna Kealy lectures in Theatre Studies and English in South East Technological University (SETU). In 2022, she worked with Amanda Coogan, Alvean Jones, Lianne Quigley, Dublin Theatre of the Deaf and SETU staff and students on a research project entitled Lyrical Bodies, an investigation of Teresa Deevy’s ballet Possession, which was performed in Dublin and Cork in 2024. Select publications include ‘Resisting Power and Direction: The King of Spain’s Daughter by Teresa Deevy as a Feminist Call to Action’, Estudios Irlandeses, 15 (2020) and, with Kate McCarthy, ‘Writing from the Margins: Re-framing Teresa Deevy’s Archive and her Correspondence with James Cheasty c.1952–1962’, Irish University Review 52.2 (2022); ‘Shape Shifting the Silence: An Analysis of Talk Real Fine, Just like a Lady by Amanda Coogan in collaboration with Dublin Theatre of the Deaf: An appropriation of Teresa Deevy's The King of Spain's Daughter (1935)’, The Golden Thread: Irish Women Playwrights, Vol 1: 1716-1992 (2021).

This paper analyses how performance artist Amanda Coogan, Dublin Theatre of the Deaf (DTD), and Cork Deaf Community Choir materialised Possession, a previously unperformed work by deafened Irish playwright Teresa Deevy, through bodies, gestures, costume, Irish Sign Language (ISL) and women’s sign (a dialect of ISL).  

In this paper Deevy’s Possession is read as a response to Ireland’s partition and Civil War. Analysis focuses on how the theatre makers listed above incorporated performance art, sign language, and gestus to create a production that exposed and challenged the project of empire building and the consequences of the unravelling of empire.  

The paper contributes to analysis of the work of Teresa Deevy and of theatre practice created by and specifically for Deaf, deafened, Hard of Hearing, and hearing audiences nationally and internationally. The paper is potentially of interest to those interested in Irish theatre practice, performance art, Irish Sign Language, Deaf theatre practice and inclusive, creative, collaborative practice designed to appeal to diverse audiences.