Gemma Creagh is a writer, filmmaker and journalist. She was born in Cork, lives in Dublin, and has studied both in Belfast and in Galway. In 2014 she graduated with a First from NUIG’s MA Writing programme. A huge fan of live performance, Gemma’s play Spoiling Sunset, was staged in Galway as part of the Jerome Hynes One Act Play series in 2014 (clip). Gemma was one of eight playwrights selected for AboutFACE’s 2021 Transatlantic Tales. In Loving Memory of Dan O’Reilly was also available to watch in January 2022 at the Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival in New York.
Gemma was the creator, writer and co-producer of the five-part comedy Rental Boys for RTÉ’s Storyland (Episode One). As well as penning all five episodes (which received a total budget of €40,000), she was responsible for directing and editing the marketing shorts and videos. Since then, she has gone on to write, direct and produce shorts and sketches which screened at festivals around the world (from the Galway Film Fleadh, to the Screen Ireland supported International Film Festival Molodist in the Ukraine (facilitated by Screen Ireland). She was commissioned to direct the short film, After You, by Filmbase and Temple Bar Cultural Trust, as part of the Made in Temple Bar Festival.
On other projects, features, live events, advertisements, and TV Shows, Gemma has worked across a number of departments. She traveled the country as a production assistant on TG4 Documentary Scéal na Gaeilge, was a prop buyer on the Screen Ireland Short, Barry’s Bespoke Bakery and regularly shot and edited corporate videos for the countrywide Jobs Expos. Promoting diversity and gender parity are very important to her ethos, and she is currently working as Administrative Executive for the Irish Chapter Women in FIlm and TV. Gemma has penned articles for magazines, industry websites and national newspapers and works as the assistant editor for Film Ireland Magazine. She’s a contributor to RTE Radio One’s Arena on occasion.
She has recently just completed co-writing a feature, Fair Game under Screen Ireland’s Spotlight Development Scheme. In 2018 the Galway Film Centre commissioned Gemma’s pitch for Fitzy’s Last Stand to be developed. Her script Listen was shortlisted for the 2020 Dun Laoghaire First Frames Scheme and was a finalist in the CinemaStreet Women’s Short Screenplay Competition. One of the chosen Axis Assemble artists in 2021, Gemma is presently developing a play – Old Town – with axis Theatre and the support of the Arts Council’s Agility Fund. A section of this work was performed February 2022 at the axis Assemble:Works in Progress showcase and will be completed later in the year.
Gemma has just been commissioned as one of five writers to write a piece for Voyeur Theatre with the aim of it being performed in Kilkenny in 2023. She had been shortlisted for DLR’s First Frames Funding Screen to direct her comedy/horror Conveyance.