O'flaherty V.C.: A Recruiting Pamphlet
1915
George Bernard Shaw's 1915 satirical gem arrives disguised as a recruiting pamphlet, but don't be fooled. This is Shaw at his most mischievous, using the theater as a Trojan horse to dismantle the propaganda driving Irishmen into the British Army during the Great War. Private O'Flaherty has won the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military honor, yet finds himself trapped between two incompatible loyalties: the empire that decorated him and the Irish mother who views his service as betrayal. The play unfolds in a tense confrontation between O'Flaherty and General Sir Pearce Madigan, a man tasked with convincing more Irishmen to enlist. What emerges is a razor-sharp examination of how patriotism becomes a weapon, how heroism gets weaponized, and how colonial subjects are asked to die for a crown that holds them down. Shaw, ever the contrarian, refuses to offer easy answers. Instead, he lets the absurdity speak for itself: an Irish hero honored by the very empire that subjugates his homeland. Over a century later, the play's interrogation of nationalism, loyalty, and who truly benefits from war feels less like period piece than urgent contemporary reckoning.
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“You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Shall I turn up the light for you?No, give me deeper darkness. Money is not made in the light.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Captain Shotover: How much does your soul eat?Ellie: Oh, a lot. It eats music and pictures and books and mountains and lakes and beautiful things to wear and nice people to be with.””
— Bernard Shaw
“The natural term of the affection of the human animal for its offspring is six years.””
— Bernard Shaw
“Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world.””
— Bernard Shaw
“We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.””
— Bernard Shaw
“A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself.””
— Bernard Shaw
“When our relatives are at home, we have to think of all their good points or it would be impossible to endure them. But when they are away, we console ourselves for their absence by dwelling on their vices.””
— Bernard Shaw
“People don't have their virtues and vices in sets: they have them anyhow: all mixed.””
— Bernard Shaw
