In 1988, Pigsback's first major outing took place as a summer season in Players Theatre where they staged Steven Berkoff's West and Tom Paulin's The Riot Act.

'[4] From 1990, Pigsback consistently won annual financial support from the Arts Council (Ireland), which allowed the company to expand its activities to engage with venues and partners outside of Dublin.

[5] Between 1990 and 2009, the company produced 30 world premiers, along with dozens of short play festivals; it organised regular courses, workshops and seminars, often focused on developing new writing.

In 1997, the company was renamed 'Fishamble' in honour of Dublin's Fishamble Street, where in 1784, Robert Owenson established the first theatre dedicated to producing new Irish plays.

As Jim Culleton explained: 'when we commissioned short plays a while back [1997], we ended up getting submissions from Cambodia and Vietnam and Australia and the States and Canada and all over Europe.

In 2016, Fishamble: The New Play Company and actor/writer Pat Kinevane were presented with the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for Silent.

Notable Irish writers whose plays have been developed, produced and commissioned by Fishamble include Maeve Binchy, Sebastian Barry, Joseph O'Connor, Mark O'Rowe, Dermot Bolger, Marina Carr, Colum McCann, Pat Kinevane and Gary Duggan.

'Show in a Bag' assists actors, either solo or in pairs, to write a script and produce a show for the Dublin Fringe, which then has the potential to tour.