This article explores the impact of new media and the mass media on the
production, composition and reception of contemporary Irish drama. It
considers the emergence of several tensions in that genre, notably that
between mobility and stasis and the local and the global. This development
is considered in relation to a discussion of two plays: Billy Roche’s On
Such As We, which was produced at the Peacock Theatre in 2001, and
Paul Meade’s Skin Deep, premiered by his company Gúna Nua at the
Project Arts Centre in Dublin in 2003.