[3] Following school at CBC Monkstown and further education at People's College Ballsbridge he worked for Sealink until 1980, when he resigned to write full-time for the theatre.

(1981), All The Way Back (1985), Say Cheese (1987), Forty-Four Sycamore (1992), The Last Apache Reunion (1993), Happy Birthday Dear Alice (1994), Stella By Starlight (1997), Kevin's Bed (1998), The Spirit of Annie Ross (1999), Lovers at Versailles (2002), Many Happy Returns (2005) The Verdi Girls (2007), Wallace, Balfe And Mr. Bunn (2009) and Bookworms which premiered at the Abbey Theatre in 2010 and was revived there in 2012.

The result was Canaries which premiered at the Abbey for the 1980s Dublin Theatre Festival, was an immediate success and won Farrell The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.

[5] This continued success allowed him to resign his clerical job at Sealink Shipping Company to devote himself to the theatre.

In 1987 his social farce Say Cheese enjoyed an extended run at the Abbey, playing to full houses and described by the Irish Press as "a barrel of fun which gets the audience rolling in the aisles".

These began with 44 Sycamore, written for Red Kettle Theatre Company in 1992 which attracted glowing notices in its native Waterford – "a comic gem"[8] from The Sunday Tribune and "a roaring success"[9] from The Irish Press – before continuing its success at Andrews Lane Theatre in Dublin and then onto a National Tour.

[11] The Sunday Tribune said that "school reunions have never been so funny, frightening and enjoyable"[12] and The Guardian called it "Farrell's most accomplished".

[15] After its extended run in Waterford, it transferred to Andrews Lane Theatre in Dublin prior to a National Tour.

In 1996, Stella By Starlight, Farrell's first play for Dublin's Gate Theatre, starring Gemma Craven, opened to enthusiastic reviews – The Sunday Independent saying that "this is stagecraft of no mean kind: polished, accomplished, mature, wicked, self-confident and very funny".

Farrell returned to the Abbey Theatre in 1998 with Kevin's Bed – a memory play that The Irish Times called "an absorbing and richly structured comedy"[17] and The Sunday Independent said that "Bernard Farrell becomes more assured with every play: his view on Irish society becomes more jaundiced, his serious turns more accomplished, his comedy more socially biting".

[24] He has also written television dramas for both RTÉ and BBC and his radio plays have been widely broadcast and have represented Ireland at the Prix Italia.