The Navigator Project
A Collaboration for Health Equity
About The Navigator Project
The Navigator Project is a collaboration between healthcare workers, researchers, theatre professionals and writers, which was co-founded by Jim Culleton, Joe Gallagher and Mark Ledwidge.
The Navigator Project is unusual. Artists are often commissioned to create a response to scientific or medical research. However, the Navigator Project does it the other way around, commissioning playwrights to write plays, and instead asking scientists and healthcare practitioners to respond.
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The theatre project is led by Jim Culleton, Eva Scanlan, Laura MacNaughton, and Gavin Kostick from Fishamble: The New Play Company. The healthcare and research project is led by Nontobeko Mdluli, Joe Gallagher and Mark Ledwidge (School of Medicine in University College Dublin, Ireland) and Balwani Mbakaya (University of Livingstonia, Malawi).
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In Ireland, one of the most important determining factors of healthcare outcomes is a person’s address: https://www.socialjustice.ie/content/policy-issues/health-inequalities-postcode-lottery. The Navigator Project also provides a healthcare, social and cultural connection between people in Ireland and Malawi. Today, women in Malawi live almost 20 years less than women in Ireland.
Ten short plays have been commissioned from over 220 submissions
The Navigator Project develops theatre to explore how marginalisation causes health inequality and ask whether integrating science, cross-cultural learning and theatre could raise awareness about health inequality in marginalised communities.​
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In late 2025, Fishamble commissioned four writers to create work. They were Carys D Coburn, Hannah Khalil, Jade Jordan and Rosaleen McDonagh. Joining the commissioned writers are 6 more writers who were selected from a public call-out for submissions in November 2025. These playwrights are Susannah Al Fraihat, Ryan Gillespie, Caitlin Magnall-Kearns, Susan Lynch, Niall Murphy and Treasa Nealon.
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Jim Culleton, Artistic Director, Fishamble: The New Play Company said:
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“We are so delighted to have had such a strong and engaged response to our call-out for plays about health inequality, as part of the Navigator project, in partnership with G-Health Research. We received over 220 submissions covering so many aspects of the topic. Many plays dealt with a feeling of not being listened to or believed by medical professionals, the connection between mental and physical health, and the financial, geographical, gender, and language barriers to accessing healthcare."
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Listen to Jim Culleton, Artistic Director of Fishamble: The New Play Company talk about the Public Call Out for Plays on RTE's Morning Ireland 20th October 2025.
The Navigator Project First Readings
With support from a prestigious Pavilion Patron Donation Award (Pavillion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire) the first readings were held in Dublin City Arts Office rehearsal space at the Lab in Foley Street on the 9th of December 2025 and the 14th of January 2026
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About Our Healthcare Work
The healthcare and research team is focused on primary and community care, including the prevention of chronic illnesses, such as heart failure, high blood pressure and diabetes, both in Ireland and Malawi.
The team is building supports in primary care to address social exclusion and mental health as a contributor to chronic ill-health.
The team is also focused on the impact that bias and marginalisation have on health equality.
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About Our Inspiration
The Navigator Project takes inspiration from the ancient story of the Navigator Cessair, from Irish mythology, who fled climate change and marginalisation in East Africa to reach the western edge of the known world. She became the first person to settle on the island we now call Ireland.
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Today, our healthcare and theatre projects are built by modern-day navigators on a foundation which recognises shared humanity and health equality as a human right. These navigators might tell an important story about health equity, or contribute to knowledge and progress in health equity for all.
In a collaboration with Fishamble: The New Play Company, The Navigator Project examines how bias and marginalisation in healthcare often begin with the stories we are told, or that we tell ourselves.
It aims to develop new stories about health inequality through theatre, and to provide a healthcare, scientific and cultural response.
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The Navigator Project also embraces two-way learning inspired by countries at the bookends of human migration: Malawi in East Africa and Ireland.
Éadaoin Glynn: The Navigator, 2022, image reproduced with permission of the artist.
Can the heart reflect marginalisation?
According to mythology, Cessair is said to have died of a broken heart. Heart disease remains the biggest global cause of death.
Our work highlights how gender/sex differences and social determinants of health can lead to under-diagnosis and under-treatment of heart disease, especially in women. Poor understanding of how these gender/sex differences evolve is at the root of this problem. Non-traditional risk factors for heart disease, such as pregnancy complication and menopause, are often ignored.
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Heart disease is also becoming a major problem in Malawi, where people live almost 20 years less than people in Ireland. This dramatic health inequality is compounded by poverty and limited access to healthcare and medicines.
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In Ireland, people from minority groups or with disabilities also have reduced life expectancy. A person's postcode is an important marker of health. Much work is needed in healthcare, education, and cultural exchange to resolve this health inequality.
We hope that the theatre we create in The Navigator Project will help raise awareness and change narratives about health equity amongst healthcare professionals and in the wider public discourse.
Health equity
In Malawi, poverty and limited access to healthcare workers and treatments are the biggest challenges in healthcare. These issues can also be a challenge for people in Ireland, especially for members of minority groups.
Meitheal / Umunthu
The Navigator Project is aligned to community self-help practices such as "Meitheal" in Ireland (where people help each other according to their abilities) and "Umunthu" in Malawi (which means "I am because we are").
Shared humanity
The Navigator Project advocates for a broader understanding of identity, suggesting that we are all immigrants, just like Cessair. Migration provides refuge from poverty, conflict and climate change, just as Cessair's journey did. Migration can also create cultural exchange that enriches and connects communities.
Our Healthcare Team
Our Creative Team
The Navigator Project asks playwrights to create short plays that tell stories of modern day “Navigators” who are responding to health challenges, and to health inequity caused by marginalisation, poverty, bias, racism and conflict. Originally, Fishamble commissioned four writers to create work for the Navigator Project. They are Carys D Coburn, Hannah Khalil, Jade Jordan and Rosaleen McDonagh. Joining these commissioned writers are 6 more writers who were selected from a public call-out for submissions in November 2025.
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Jim Culleton
Artistic Director
Eva Scanlon
Executive Director
