The Lughnasa Chicken – Mpauldesigns

“The Lughnasa Chicken” is a prop I built in 2013 which sat in my attic for about a year doing nothing. Then I realized my how-to blog post was number one on Google for “Lughnasa rooster” and “Lughnasa chicken” and I added a single extra sentence about rentals.

It was Easter Sunday, but less than two hours later I had my first rental request. Since then this bird has flown all over the country and as far away as England to be in productions of Peter Friel’s “Dancing at Lughnasa”, 12 productions in all.

It seems that as long as this classic Irish play is being done somewhere, this chicken prop will find work!

a close up of the gory chickie head before attachment. Amazing what you can do with some modeling clay!

prop dead chicken — La Pieta chicken! It’s absolutely incredible the variety of feathers that goes into a real bird. You have wing feathers, pin feathers, neck feathers, fluffy feathers- tail feathers! I couldn’t afford every type (without sacrificing a bird myself) but a good 6 kinds of feathers went into this build.