Meet our 2025 Judges!
We're delighted to welcome our 2025 Dublin Fringe Festival awards judges to this year's proceedings!
Every year, Dublin Fringe Festival selects a panel of experts from Irish cultural life to become Fringe Award Judges. They are tasked with choosing nominees and recipients for the prestigious awards. Dublin Fringe Awards recognise, reward and celebrate the talent on display at our festival each year.
Judge's Chair- Hannah Gumbrielle: Hannah is an arts worker and multidisciplinary aerial artist passionate about inclusive teaching practices and making circus accessible. She specialises in cocoon, trapeze, counterweight, and harness, exploring the topic of queerness, illness, and body image in her work.
Most recently, Hannah performed her autobiographical show Malignant Humour, exploring the death defying circus act that is cancer treatment. A work in progress debuted at Scene + Heard to a sold-out crowd, and since has been featured on the Oliver Callan Show, RTÉ Culture, Ireland AM, and The Independent. Malignant Humour ran for 8 sold-out performances at Smock Alley Theatre as part of Dublin Fringe 2024. It garnered five stars from The Irish Times and three Dublin Fringe nominations, including the First Fortnight Award, Irish Aerial Creation Centre 10 Year Anniversary Award, and Radical Spirit Award. You can learn more about her work at gumbrielle.com or @gumbrielle on Instagram.
Image: Monika Palova
Aisling Ormonde
Aisling Ormonde is an independent creative producer who has produced work for both the Gate and Abbey theatres, as well as for companies such as the corn exchange, thisispopbaby and dead centre. internationally she has toured new irish work across Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. She has produced work for seven editions of Dublin Fringe Festival; most recently Raphael Amahl Khouri’s ‘It Was Paradise, Unfortunately’ in 2024 which she also directed.
AlanJames Burns, (They, Them) is a neurodivergent, environmental and audiovisual artist, curator and festival maker producing interactive, socially engaged and site-specific projects. The focal points of their highly collaborative practice are disability, climate emergency and a just society.
Their projects include; Artistic director of Disrupt Disability Arts Festival, since 2022, an annual festival taking place on at Project Arts centre and online; Divergently Together, 2024-26 a national Creative Ireland and Research Ireland climate action project exploring the climate crisis through the perspective of disability; Our Place, 2023-26, a collaborative place making visual arts project co-designed alongside adults with intellectual disabilities supported by SJOG Liffey Service and Carlow Arts Festival; Caoineadh Dúlra & The Waking Walls, 2020-2026, community work that employees processes of caoineadh to understand experiences of ecological grief.
Caitríona Daly is a playwright and screenwriter from Dublin. She was the eighth recipient of the Irish Theatre Institute’s Phelim Donlon Bursary and Residency Award. She has also received Writer’s Guild of Ireland Awards for Best Theatre Script for her play Duck Duck Goose which was produced by Fishamble: The New Play Company in 2021; and for Best Continuing Drama Script for her work on the BBC Drama Doctors in 2024.
Her plays Test Dummy and Normal have previously been nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Play and The Fishamble New Writing Prize, respectively. Her work is published by Nick Hern Books and has been translated and produced internationally.
Dara Hoban is a Dublin based lighting designer and theatre maker. Dara is a graduate of Rough Magic Theatre Company’s SEEDS programme and of Trinity College Dublin, with a degree in Drama and Film Studies.
As a designer and theatre maker Dara likes to work holistically. Collaborating with other artists throughout the process to help shape the design narrative and visual language of a production.
Eoin Rogers is literary programmer and writer from Dublin. His writing has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Abridged, and elsewhere. In 2024 Holy Show commissioned his comics to feature in an exhibition in the Museum of Literature Ireland. He is the programme manager of The Stinging Fly.
Ghaliah Conroy is an Irish/French Guianese Maker and Performer based in Dublin.She graduated from Fontys Dance Academy with a Bachelor's degree in Dance and Choreography and has since had a Inter-Disciplinary approach when it comes to performing, creating and working in the arts. This year Ghaliah premiered her Dance piece ‘SUNKEN WORKS’ in De Nieuwe Vorst Theatre, Tilburg and then performed it in The Project Arts Centre as part of Live Collision Festival. This summer she also appeared in a national tour of Malaprop’s ‘HOTHOUSE’ and most recently in the Bord Gais Theatre ‘Little Shop Of Horrors’. In the coming months she will appear in The Gate Theatre’s ‘POOR’ and later in the year will travel to Cannes where her Dance film ‘SUNKEN WORKS/don’t bite’ will be shown as part of the Dance Festival.
As an Inter-Disciplinary artist Ghaliah believes The Fringe Festival has been an invaluable space to express and witness new work and is so excited to be a part of the Judges panel this year.
Jennie Moran is a visual artist whose work explores hospitality as a creative and connective philosophy. Blending sculpture, food and performance, she founded Luncheonette, an art/hospitality project at NCAD in 2013. She lectures widely, mentors in holistic hospitality and curates discursive events. She is chair of the Oxford and Dublin Gastronomy Symposium and a Getty Institute research scholar. Jennie is the author of "How to Soften Corners" and was named Best Emerging Voice at the Irish Food Writing Awards.
Mango is a Dublin based artist who has been a prominent figure in the Irish music industry for nearly a decade. Releasing critically acclaimed albums as part of MxM, performing poetry around the country, and acting on stage most recently in Scene + Heard Festival or his writing which has been published by District Magazine & The Irish Times, Mango has been an advocate and a fervent contributor to the arts in Ireland. He has performed at and organised events, stage shows,festivals & club nights along with his own residencies such as Mango & Friends and he is the co-founder of Kumar Klub which is a music and food focused series of events, parties and supper clubs.
He also presents the digital radio show Smoke Breaks & Handbrakes which has become a platform to showcase an eclectic mix of music from around the globe to a community of like minded listeners.
Mark T Cox is a London based performer and has been a prominent figure on the entertainment scene for over 10 years. His work blends elements of storytelling, cabaret and comedy with strong themes of queerness, rural life and the Irish diaspora experience, regularly collaborating with the London Irish Centre, the Irish Embassy in Britain, and the wider London Irish LGBTQ community. In 2025, Mark is on tour with his sold-out Dublin Fringe Festival show 'Paddy Daddy' and has launched his comedy podcast 'Your Internet Boyfriends' with comedian Denis Len, one of the fastest growing podcasts in Ireland!
Beyond entertainment, Mark also works in the architecture and design world, working as curator on major public engagements projects for New London Architecture, London Festival of Architecture, the Mayor of London and several London based cultural institutions.
Matthew Malone is an Irish actor. Named as one of The Irish Times’ 50 people to watch, he has worked with many of Ireland’s leading theatre companies. He most recently played Alceste in A Misanthrope at Smock Alley Theatre (Sugarglass | Once Off). Matthew has been nominated by the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards three times, including Best Actor for the role of Bernard in Philip McMahon’s Once Before I Go (The Gate).
Matthew is also a writer, currently developing a new play funded by Arts Council Ireland, and was a finalist for the Virgin Media Discovers Award. He trained in acting at The Lir, and also holds a degree in Drama & English from Trinity College Dublin.
Morgan Savidan is a Dublin based French-Indonesian actor, theatre maker and writer as well as the founder of the Indie film festival The Shit Show Film Show.
Morgan trained at Cours Florent in Paris and the Gaiety School of Acting. She co wrote and performed her first show BEASTS at Scene and Heard and Dublin Fringe festival in 2024 supported by the Pan Pan platform.
Ronan Carey is an award-winning performer, director, and creative producer whose career spans acting, production, and project development. A stalwart voice in Dublin’s comedy scene, he is a founding member of Mob Theatre Dublin, and his acclaimed work with Dreamgun: Film Reads has brought him to international stages at major festivals including Edinburgh, Adelaide, and Gothenburg.
With key roles with some of Ireland’s most respected theatre organisations, Ronan has served as Production Coordinator with the renowned Fishamble: The New Play Company, Associate Producer of The 24 Hour Plays: Dublin, and is currently Fundraising Tour Coordinator for Trinity Repertory Theatre in Rhode Island.
Beyond the stage, Ronan has contributed to Dublin’s cultural life through his work with the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, the Irish Architectural Foundation, and the Little Museum of Dublin. A passionate guide as well as a theatre-maker, he shares Ireland’s history and stories with audiences both at home and abroad.
Shauna Harris is a multidisciplinary artist, actor and writer with a passion for creative advocacy. Theatre credits include The Giggler Treatment (The Ark), Monsters (Dublin Fringe / The Lir), which she also co-wrote and Hive City Legacy: Dublin Chapter (Hot Brown Honey) - winner of the Dublin Fringe Judges’ Choice Award. Screen credits include Virgin Media Discovers ‘Trasna na Líne’, Sue Bruce-Smith award winner for Best Irish Short at Dublin International Film Festival 2025. Her writing has been exhibited at MOLI, UCD and NCAD for ‘The Belonging Project’ and was recently published in Bloomer’s ‘Bless The Corners of This House’.
Shauna is a current mentee on Create’s artist mentoring award, was a 2024 Writer's Guild of Ireland Black-Irish Screenwriters mentee, 2023-24 Dublin Fringe WEFT Studio artist and collaborative recipient of the 2023 Romilly Walton Masters Award and residency from Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris in partnership with Dublin Fringe Festival.
Zainab Boladale is a multi-talented Nigerian-Irish journalist, presenter and author known for her captivating storytelling across diverse platforms including television, film and print. She marked a historic milestone in 2017, becoming the first Black woman to present Irish TV news. Zainab's creative contributions include her impactful short film Worthy, which premiered at the GAZE Film Festival in 2023. Her debut Young Adult novel, Braids Take a Day, published by The O’Brien Press in 2024, quickly garnered acclaim with an An Post Irish Book Award nomination.