Martin McDonagh (born 26 March 1970) is an Irish playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Although he has lived in England his entire life, he is considered one of the most important living Irish playwrights.

McDonagh was born in Camberwell, London, England to Irish parents. His mother (originally from Killeenduff, Easky, County Sligo) and his father (originally from Lettermullen, Connemara, County Galway) later moved back to Galway, leaving Martin and his brother (writer-director John Michael McDonagh) to grow up in London. He was awarded Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Most Promising Playwright in 1996.

Separated into two trilogies, McDonagh’s first six plays are located in and around County Galway, where he spent his holidays as a child. The first is set in Leenane, a small village on the west coast of Ireland, and consists of The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996), A Skull in Connemara (1997) and The Lonesome West (1997). His second trilogy consists of The Cripple of Inishmaan (1997), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) and The Banshees of Inisheer (which was never published, as McDonagh insisted it "isn't any good"), scattered across a trio of islands just off the coast of County Galway. His first non-Irish play, The Pillowman, is set in a fictitious totalitarian state, and premiered at the National Theatre in 2003, having been presented in a rehearsed reading in Galway in 1997. He has also penned two prize-winning radio plays, including The Tale of the Wolf and the Woodcutter.

After his film Six Shooter in 2006 won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. McDonagh wrote and directed his first full-length feature, In Bruges (2008), for which he received the BAFTA Award for Original Screenplay and a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nomination.

McDonough's play A Behanding in Spokane, his first set in America, premiered in New York in 2010. Lead actor Christopher Walken was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance as a killer looking for the hand he lost in his youth.

(text from Wikipedia)