The Writings of Sean O'casey - Irish Playwright

by a&nota

Sean O’Casey was born in Dublin in 1880 at 85 Upper Dorset St in the northern inner-city area of Dublin. He grew up surrounded by the tenements that would form the backdrop of his ground-breaking plays. He joined the Gaelic League in 1906 and learned to speak Irish, he also became a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and became involved in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union which represented the interests of the unskilled workers who lived in the Irish tenements. After early rejections, his first play, The Shadow of the Gunman, was produced by The Abbey Theatre in Dublin on 12 April 1923, it dealt with the impact of revolutionary politics on the normal people of Dublin. It was followed by Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926) which dealt with the Civil War and the Easter Rising respectively. Some audiences greeted The Plough and the Stars with derision misinterpreting it as an anti-nationalist rather than an anti-war play. However, his plays pumped energy, vitality and cash into the Abbey Theatre. In 1929, the Abbey rejected O’Casey’s play The Silver Tassie, O’Casey was so disgusted he left Ireland to live in England for the rest of his life. He wrote a further fifteen plays but they were less realist becoming more symbolic and expressionist. With the sole exception of Within the Gates, none of his later plays received either critical or commercial success. He also wrote a six part autobiography known collectively as Mirror in my House. He died in 1864 at his home in Torquay, England.

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source: http://www.exploringireland.net

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