The Years of O'Casey
1921-1926
Robert Hogan and Richard Burnham

The twenty-seven years documented in the six volumes of The Modern Irish Drama saw the foundation and coming-of-age of one of the most significant theatre movements in the modern world, covering a span of time from the return of Yeats to Ireland after years spent in London to Sean O'Casey's departure to spend the rest of his life in England.

The Years of O'Casey, the sixth and final volume of The Modern Irish Drama, describes and documents the Irish theatre from 1921 to 1926, years duringwhich that theatre was more than usually influenced by the state of the country. The documents collected in the book therefore reveal the vigorous reaction of the Irish Theatre to the political events of the day.

The 1800 days of The Years of O'Casey break into two periods. The first comprises the violent period of the `Black and Tan' campaign in Ireland, the succeeding exhaustion which preceded the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the bitterness which followed and sparked off the Irish Civil War. The second period was both politically and theatrically one of assimilation and consolidation of which O'Casey's early plays, The Shadow of a Gunman and Juno and the Paycock might seem symptomatic. As also, from the vantage point of the theatre historian, The Plough and the Stars, its attendant `row' and O'Casey's departure from Ireland perhaps seem symptoms of divisions that have continued in Ireland until the present time.

Volume 6 of `The Modern Irish Drama'

Irish Theatre Series 12

0-85105-428-5 £35.00