There will be a tribute to Sam Starrett at the Playhouse, Artillery St., Derry N Ireland next week, 18 Nov.

looking for some on line info I found a note that playwright Felicity McCall was working on "Flowers of the Forest, facilitated and adapted from the WW1 project by the late Sam Starrett" to be presented at Waterside Theatre, 2009. Well, she has just had a WWI play presented at Waterside Theatre, "We Were Brothers" (about Irish Catholics and Protestants who fought side by side and esp. about Willy Redmond, Nationalist MP, brother of better known John Redmond).Tonight this play is on at the Playhouse. don't know whether it owes much to Sam Starrett?

I also found the following obituary (probably the same one with clickable link above)
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northwest-edition/daily/tributes-pour-in-for-writer-sam-starrett-13421431.html

Tributes pour in for writer Sam Starrett
By Brendan McDaid
Tuesday, 6 March 2007

Tributes today poured in for Londonderry playwright, songwriter and " talented gentleman" Sam Starrett following his death from cancer.

Mr Starrett (57), from Drumahoe, who had become one of Northern Ireland's most widely admired playwrights, died of cancer yesterday morning.

He had been working on a production based on the Battle of Messines in conjunction with friend Glen Barr, founder of the International School for Peace Studies in Belgium.

He also helped write the globally successful song John Condon - based on the youngest soldier killed in the First World War - with his partner, all-Ireland champion fiddler Tracey McRory, and Richard Laird.

Together with Tracey, Sam had performed at the annual war commemoration ceremony in Belgium at the invitation of the Ypres town council.

The couple also wrote a song for the young victims of the 1996 Dunblane school massacre which they played at the children's gravesides.

Last year, Mr Starrett was commissioned by The Playhouse Theatre in Derry to write The Worthless Soldier, based on the experiences of Derry teenager Bernard McGeehan, who was charged with desertion and shot by his own side.

Following a successful run locally, attended by members of Mr McGeehan's family, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs commissioned the play to be performed in Dublin.

At the time the Irish government had joined the Shot At Dawn campaign to put pressure on the British Government to pardon 300 Irishmen killed for alleged desertion or cowardice during the First World War.

Niall McCaughan, general manager at the Playhouse, today led tributes to the Derry man: "We were shocked when we heard he was very ill and very saddened to hear this terrible news.

"He was one of the few people who were commissioned to write plays here that then went on tour, and throughout his work with us at The Playhouse he was always a gentleman."

Speaking from Sam's home in St Johnston, Co Donegal, his friend, local community activist Diane Greer said: "We had been friends for a very long time. Sam gave me my first and only starring role in the critically acclaimed play Home For Christmas.

"He was my friend and I am going to miss him desperately."

Ms Greer said Mr Starrett was one of the few playwrights whose work often focused on the Protestant heritage he came from, and reconciliation.

"He even tried to depoliticise the poppy and used history to show the common ground," she said.

Glen Barr added: "Sam was highly thought of. He was a very talented man, a friend and he will be sadly missed."

Mr Starrett's funeral will leave his late home in Altaskin, St Johnston in Co Donegal, tomorrow at 1.15pm for a service at Glendermott Parish Church followed by burial at Altnagelvin cemetery.

The family have asked for donations in lieu of flowers to be passed on to the Foyle Hospice, 61 Culmore Road.
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Reminder, Sam died in 2007. A memorial programme will be presented at Derry Playhouse 18 Nov 2009.