Samuel J. Waddell (1878-1967), who took on the stage-name Rutherford Mayne when he embarked on a theatrical career, was the most prolific, versatile, and successful playwright that the Irish Literary Revival in Ulster brought forth. In the course of his career as a dramatist, from 1906 to 1934, he wrote thirteen plays -- ten plays for the Ulster Literary Theatre, one for the Dublin-based Theatre of Ireland, and two for the Abbey Theatre. Especially his early realist Ulster peasant plays were very successful, among them The Drone (1908), the most popular Irish folk comedy of the first half of the twentieth century. He also acted a great number of main parts in plays of his own and of other writers, to great acclaim, mainly in Belfast and Dublin but also on tours to England and Scotland, from 1904 until late in his life. His plays disappeared from the stage in the 1950s, and, when he died, his artistic achievements were almost forgotten. Wolfgang Zach's introduction to this volume is the first attempt to give a lengthy survey of Mayne's life and works, with particular emphasis on a discussion of all his plays, their critical reception, stage history, and specific features. As to the selection of Rutherford Mayne's plays contained in this volume, seven of his eight published plays -- his most important ones -- have been included in this edition. Two important prose pieces (one of Mayne's essays and an interview), have been added to his reprinted plays as they provide direct insight into his personality, views, and career. In the biographical and critical section of the Checklist appended to this book, publications have also been included that do not solely concentrate on RutherfordMayne but are of great significance to any student of his life and plays.

Analysing major Irish dramas and the artists and companies that performed them, Modern Irish Theatre provides an engaging and accessible introduction to twentieth-century Irish theatre: its origins, dominant themes, relationship to politics and culture, and influence on theatre movements around the world. By looking at her subject as a performance rather than a literary phenomenon, Trotter captures how Irish theatre has actively reflected and shaped debates about Irish culture and identity among audiences, artists, and critics for over a century. This text provides the reader with discussion and analysis of: Significant playwrights and companies, from Lady Gregory to Brendan Behan to Marina Carr, and from the Abbey Theatre to the Lyric Theatre to Field Day; Major historical events, including the war for Independence, the Troubles, and the social effects of the Celtic Tiger economy; Critical Methodologies: how postcolonial, diaspora, performance, gender, and cultural theories, among others, shed light on Irish theatre’s political and artistic significance, and how it has addressed specific national concerns. Because of its comprehensiveness and originality, Modern Irish Theatre will be of great interest to students and general readers interested in theatre studies, cultural studies, Irish studies, and political performance.

An innovative and original analysis of Protestant advanced nationalists, from the early twentieth century to the end of the Irish Civil War.

Irish drama selections. Contains "The Retriever," "Professor Tim," "The New Gossoon," "The Passing Day," "The Rugged Path," "The Summit," and a biographical checklist.

Contains The Son of Learning, The Flame, Black Fast, The Kiss, As the Crow Flies, The Viscount of Blarney, The Second Kiss, Liberty Lane, and the hitherto unpublished The Frenzy of Sweeney and St Patrick's Purgatory (a translation of Calderón's play), 'Verse Speaking', 'Verse Speaking and Verse Drama', and a bibliographical checklist.

Morash and Richards present an original approach to understanding how theatre has produced distinctively Irish senses of space and place.

Generations of Irish playwrights have tried to assert the reputation of the stage Irish figure as other than comic, but each effort was in its turn assailed as buffoonery. Using post-colonial and performative theory, Buffoonery in Irish Drama demonstrates the ways the Irish struggled to create a sense of identity in a colonial structure, and it explores the distortion and appropriation of that new identity that elicit further calls to eradicate negative stereotypes. Demonstrating the pervasiveness of the reclamation efforts, Buffoonery in Irish Drama covers a wide range of well-known and obscure plays to show the trajectory of twentieth-century drama that brings us into a globalized twenty-first-century Ireland.

The Glens of Antrim formed one of the last Irish-speaking areas of Ulster until the early 1900s. Until the opening of the Antrim coast road in the 1850s Irish was universally spoken in the Glens and on Rathlin. The turn of the 19th century saw the Gaelic Revival which in the north of Ireland involved both Unionists and Nationalists in an effort to preserve Irish as a spoken language. It was against this background of cultural renaissance that Feis na nGleann ('The Glens Feis') was founded in 1904 as the first Gaelic cultural festival in east Ulster. That inaugural Feis harnessed the talents of the Glens folk and a group of leading "Big House" figures in the locality, among them Miss Rose Young of Galgorm Castle, Miss Ada McNeill of Cushendun, and Miss Margaret Dobbs. Others included Sir Roger Casement, then a recent convert to Irish nationalism, Eoin MacNeill, Glensman and language revivalist, Francis Joseph Bigger, lawyer and antiquarian, John 'Benmore' Clarke and Joseph Campbell, the Belfast poet. This book traces the origins of Feis na nGleann in that 'crease in time' between Parnell and the 1916 Rising. In a series of scholarly chapters, experts profile the historic founders of the Feis and record the history of Irish in the district. There are special sections on the traditional arts and crafts fostered by the Feis, the once famous Glens toy-making industry, the role of hurling and the rich literary legacy of the Feiseanna. The book is lavishly illustrated with unique contemporary photographs. The result is attractive and readable volume which will appeal to all those interested in the history and culture of the Glens and the fortunes of the Irish language in the north of Ireland.