Irish Plays and Playwrights

Around the turn of the twentieth century, Ireland underwent one of the most remarkable cultural revivals in modern history. Cornelius Weygandt's intimate account traces the birth of the Irish national theater through the movement that became the Celtic Renaissance, when writers, scholars, and visionaries came together to forge an art form from the bones of a forgotten language and suppressed traditions. At the center of this story stand W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and the Abbey Theatre, whose first productions scandalized audiences while simultaneously birthing a revolutionary dramatic tradition. Weygandt illuminates how ancient folklore and legend were transformed into urgent, living theater, and how a small group of determined artists managed to create a national stage when their own countrymen doubted literature could matter at all. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how a culture reinvents itself through story.