Next weekend, performers from 25 youth theatres will present a capsule version of Irish dramatic history, writes Christine Madden

Their enthusiasm is infectious. Some of the young actors involved in this year's National Festival of Youth Theatres production are telling me about their interest in theatre, the excitement of coming to Dublin for a big outdoor production, how they're getting on in rehearsals. It's all I can do to prevent myself jumping in, snatching an extra script and cadging a role for myself. Instead, as a wizened adult mindful of other responsibilities, I slink off just to write about it instead.

More than 100 young people from youth theatre groups across the country are coming to take part in a large open-air performance at Dublin Castle. Called Bards in the Yard, the production celebrates the breadth of Irish professional theatre throughout the centuries.

The National Festival of Youth Theatres has become a regular annual event since it was first organised by the National Association for Youth Drama (NAYD) in 1990. This year, the festival represents the fruition - but certainly not the end - of a project initiated by Rebecca Bartlett, artistic director of Bards in the Yard.

Spurred on by the paucity of adequate material for work in youth drama, Bartlett embarked on a project to rectify this. Over the last few years, she has conducted research into Irish theatre from 1639 to 1937 to unearth suitable plays. While broadening their experience, this timescale also introduces young people to the development of theatre, making them better able to understand why theatre is what it is today, and how it got there.

"I started with 1639 because that is the beginning of professional work in Ireland," explains Bartlett. "Theatre started in churches, with guilds putting on the mystery plays. In 1639, they began the actual building of purpose-built theatres," taking drama out of a religious context and giving it an existence and purpose of its own.

After completing her research, during which she discovered many unexpected gems, Bartlett collated it into six thematic packets under headings such as "on the land" and "Irish women" and brought her material to a workshop conducted last summer near Maynooth, where directors of youth theatres came together to explore the extracts and brainstorm how best to use them. They returned to their theatre groups with their play extracts and gestated the productions that will culminate in their presentation in Dublin later this week.

Bards in the Yard presents its capsule version of Irish dramatic history in the courtyard of Dublin Castle. Representatives from 25 youth theatres across Ireland are staging a theatrical fair.

"I wanted to do something like the commedia dell'arte players, who visited Dublin in the mid-18th century," says Bartlett. "We used the idea of their strolling around to advertise the fairs on rolling carts. People can come in, have a look, move around, leave and come back as they like - it's a promenade."

The upper yard will play host to three stages, a tent, a music-hall band and a roaming cart, a moveable feast of drama. Groups from 11 youth theatres will perform pieces they have devised for this production, and nine individual players will join them with elements workshopped in the two weeks before the performance. In addition to Bartlett, directors Max Hafler of Galway Youth Theatre, Liam Halligan of Quare Hawks Theatre Company and David Kelly of the NAYD will coach and assist the teenagers. The band, directed by Debra Salem, will include a number of conventional musical instruments, such as drums, a bodhrán, fiddles and flutes, as well as sticks and stones.

"The last six months have been brilliant", says Luke Moloney, a 16-year-old from Tipperary town. As well as taking part in dramatic work, he has also served on the executive of the NAYD, which gave him the additional "opportunity to meet new people and contacts". He pursued drama in his transition year, just finished, as did Anita McLoughlin, a 16-year-old student from Foxford, Co Mayo. "We did Pride and Prejudice, and I really enjoyed it," she says.

Joined by two 18-year-olds, Ciaran Callan from Dundalk and Katie Kelly from Ardagh, Co Mayo, the four are brimming with energy and excitement as their interest in the project spills over into speech.

"It's a real release, isn't it?" adds Katie to Anita's story. Ciaran jumps in: "It's great, it's really great."

In addition to rehearsing, the NAYD has taken them to the theatre (The Plough and the Stars at the Abbey) and the cinema (Charlie's Angels) to provide a bit of varied nightlife. And their mammies can rest assured they're well looked after, with Betty Duffy, their welfare officer, making sure they get fed and into bed on time.

All four denounce in unison the misconception that kids can only warm to "cool" plays about clubs and drugs and alcohol, which well-meaning but clueless adults might like to foist on them.

"Irish history is passionate," Katie says, adding that she best likes the scenes where "the tension is the highest". The pieces they are working with demonstrate that conditions such as poverty and family difficulties transcend time classification, making plays from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries just as relevant today.

"You can see what situations were like and how they dealt with them," says Anita. "Such a small thing like lack of money can lead to something really horrible on a large scale."

Bartlett's work on themes - one of which concerns women - also helps them in other ways: although most of the young people interested in drama at that age are female, the majority of roles in plays call for male players, echoing the fact that most playwrights are male.

"It really puts you at a disadvantage," Katie remarks. "There's much more competition for women."

Luke adds: "Yeah, I find that strange." Particularly so, as few boys feel comfortable pursuing drama in their teens. "Guys think you're a ponce if you're interested in drama."

Ciaran cuts in. "Yeah, I was called the drama queen for six months," he says. He gets to shed that misnomer in Bards in the Yard, as he shares a "Michael Collins moment" with Luke - they both brought such fire to a speech they each wanted to declaim that it was split down the middle for them to perform. Katie plays a Moira on a cart - her husband has just been killed, and she seeks revenge.

Many of them hope to set out on the rocky career path of theatre. Katie would like to do a course at the Gaiety or Trinity College. Ciaran, who comes from a theatrical family, will be doing A levels in performing arts before going to Queens College to study drama. He'll make of it what he can.

"Hopefully something will come up," he says. "If not, I'll teach drama. It's all I ever wanted to do."

Not even the weather will be able to dampen their enthusiasm.

"The show will go on whether it rains or not - it will happen!" insists Bartlett. The kids, too, refuse to be daunted. "It's a fantastic opportunity," says Katie. Ciaran agrees, and adds: "It's great to be able to animate, to bring things to life."

Bards in the Yard plays from 3-5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday in Dublin Castle's upper yard; admission free. NAYD tel: 01-6761301; e-mail: nayd@indigo.ie; website: www.youthdrama.ie