"Just the sort of place I have always pictured in imagination": Distance, Space, and the Development of a Heterogeneous Irish Theatre

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, the Abbey Theatre was established and assumed the role of Ireland's National Theatre. W.B. Yeats and the Abbey's directors participated in the Celtic Revival's construction of Irish-Ireland by creating an aesthetic that idealized the imagined, precolonial peasants residing in the West of Ireland, beyond the reach of modern influences. These peasants were firmly rooted in a Celtic heritage that tied emerging definitions of Irishness to a shared, homogeneous lineage; Catholics in the South and West of Ireland were included in this group, while Protestants and Presbyterians in the North were not. This paper examines the methods by which rival theater companies--specifically the Theatre of Ireland and the Ulster Literary Theatre--tried and failed to introduce a heterogeneous definition of Irishness. The productions explored here include James Cousins' The Racing Lug, which attempts to diversify the Irish experience, and Gerald MacNamara's The Mist That Does Be on the Bog, which challenges the aesthetic of the Abbey's peasant plays.