David Ireland is from Belfast and trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. His first play, WHAT THE ANIMALS SAY, was produced at Oran Mor, Glasgow in 2009. His other plays include EVERYTHING BETWEEN US (Tinderbox, Belfast) which won the Stewart Parker Award and the Meyer-Whitworth Award, THE END OF HOPE (Oran Mor), HALF A GLASS OF WATER (Field Day), YES SO I SAID YES (Ransom Productions, Belfast), CAN'T FORGET ABOUT YOU (Lyric, Belfast) and I PROMISE YOU SEX AND VIOLENCE (Northern Stage, Newcastle). In 2015, he adapted Lorca's BLOOD WEDDING for Dundee Rep and Graeae.
His 2016 play CYPRUS AVENUE (Royal Court London/Abbey Theatre Dublin/Public Theatre NYC) won the Irish Times Award for Best New Play and the James Tait Black Award for Drama and in 2018 ULSTER AMERICAN (Traverse, Edinburgh) won a Scotsman Fringe First, the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh award and the Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland Award for Best New Play.
He lives in Glasgow with his wife Jennifer and his children Ada and Elijah.

Twenty-five year-old east Belfast man Stevie meets forty-nine year-old Glaswegian widow Martha while recovering from a painful breakup with his ex-girlfriend. Stevie and Martha are immediately attracted to each other. Although their relationship is based entirely upon sexual attraction, they find themselves falling in love.
This challenges the expectations of Stevie's conservative Christian mother and his ultra-Unionist, Ulster-Scots-speaking sister who work hard to break the pair up. Stevie and Martha must decide if their relationship has a real future and if they can both overcome the pain of their heartbroken pasts.
While primarily a hilarious comedy, Can't Forget About You touches on deeper themes such as grief, loss, sexual mores, cultural identity, sectarianism, generation, and the question of how Northern Ireland moves on from the politics of the past and faces the future.