Christina Reid

Christina Reid was a playwright from Belfast who captured working class experiences of the Troubles in her writings. She wrote scripts for stage, television, and radio, including Did You Hear the One About the Irishman? which won the Ulster Television Drama Award (1980), and The Last of a Dyin' Race which won the Giles Cooper Award (1986). Her first stage-produced play, Tea in a China Cup, about 12th July traditions passed down through three generations of Protestant women, was produced by the Lyric Theatre in 1983 and won the Thames Television Playwriting Award. Her relationship with the Lyric continued when she was awarded a residency from 1983-1984. Her next play, Joyriders (1986) following four teenagers in a youth training programme, was inspired by a visit to Divis Community Centre in West Belfast.

Ephemera contained in the Christina Reid Archive at the Linen Hall Library includes letters, programmes, leaflets, photographs, scripts, handwritten notes, play synopses, statements, reviews, interviews, magazine articles, faxes, and audio recordings relating to a number of her shows. Some items of note relate to her involvement in the Festival of Irish Women Playwrights at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, script for Tea in a China Cup, handwritten note from first version of Tea in a China Cup, statement on memory and Troubles in Northern Ireland, Out of the Shadow of the Gunman interview, note on the writing of Belle of Belfast City, and stage design for Tea in a China Cup.