The Traveler as Messenger in Lady Gregory's Kincora and Dervorgilla

Abstract

This article examines the itinerant figures who perform the role of a messenger in Lady Gregory’s folk-history plays: Kincora and Dervorgilla. The beggar girl in the former and the songmaker in the latter are wanderers living on the margins of Irish society. Due to their unfettered spatial movement, these characters serve as effective messengers between various sectors of Irish society, but especially between the higher and the lower classes. Given that in reality, Travelers are persecuted by the sedentary peasant community, it is ironic that they represent their oppressors in drama. As messengers, the primary function of the stage Travelers in Kincora and Dervorgilla is to deliver the voice of the Irish people to their respective rulers. More importantly, they also act as a moral agent for kings and queens. As the embodiments of traditional folk culture, the beggar and the minstrel stand for Irish nationalism in opposition to Gormleith and Dervorgilla, the two notorious queens who brought foreign forces to Ireland. Lady Gregory’s portrayals of the messenger-Travelers in her folk historical dramas reflect the ethos of cultural nationalism at the core of the Irish Literary Revival in the modern period.