Synge and the Celtic Revival

Abstract

THE EARLY HISTORY of the Irish National Theatre Society—familiar to us as the Abbey Theatre—is full of anomalies. Although it was part of a nationalist movement, it was actually repudiated by most Irish nationalists. Although it was, and still is, the nearest thing in the English-speaking world to what might be called a people's theater, it was privately owned by an English woman, antipathetic to Irish nationalism, and its directors seemed intent upon demonstrating only contempt for the people. Although it glorified the Irish peasant, most Irish people believed that its intention was to ridicule him. Although it was a manifestation of Celtic revivalism, its dramatists wrote in English, and during its first forty years of existence only four plays out of the hundreds performed on its stage were in Irish. The directors of the theater never wavered in their attitudes toward political nationalism or toward their audiences. But they were aware of the inconsistency of a literature in English extolling what was exclusively Irish and produced in an atmosphere in which everyone seemed to be demonstrating his patriotism by learning the rudiments of the native language.