Theatre
Cathleen ni Houlihan
Synopsis
In 1798, in a cottage near Killala Bay, a family of peasants prepares the marriage of their eldest son, while rumour spreads of a French landing. An unknown old woman comes in and says she wanders because there are too many strangers in her house; she speaks of the fine green fields that were taken from her and asks that people sacrifice themselves for her. The bridegroom, already dressed for the wedding, listens to her.
Context
First performed on 2 April 1902 at St Teresa's Hall, Clarendon Street, in Dublin, by the Fay brothers' company of part-time actors, the play has Maud Gonne in the title role. According to Yeats, the subject came to him in a dream; Lady Gregory gives the peasants their speech, and in a dedication of 1903 he acknowledges that he did not have the speech of the countryside. Published in October in a periodical, it is often revived before 1916 and was performed at the Abbey a few weeks before the Easter Rising.
Who it is for
A very short one-act play in prose, in the peasant speech of the west of Ireland; translated into French.
Prizes and reception
Received as a call to arms; Yeats would later ask himself, in verse, whether it had not sent to their deaths men who were shot by the English.
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