Sean O’Casey is a great Irish writer, known for his strong political commitment, as well as for his deeply engaging literary works. Drawing his inspiration from Irish history and the nationalist struggle, his works disturbed the government of the day.
Born into a Protestant family in Dublin’s inner city, Sean O’Casey taught himself. A serious chronic eye disease prevents him from going to school and forces him to be home-schooled by his parents. His cornea degraded rapidly, handicapping him for the rest of his life until permanent blindness set in.
An idealist, he became involved in the struggle for an independent Ireland at an early age, and was one of a number of intellectuals to join Jim Larkin in the Great Strikes of 1913. Sean O’Casey then discovered the theater, and took his first steps on the stage of the Abbey Theatre, directed at the time by William Butler Yeats.
His work, which continued until 1929, was marked by three pieces:
In 1929 Sean O’Casey wrote The Silver Cup, an indictment of the Great War. William Butler Yeats dismisses O’Casey from his theater. From then on, his pieces became experimental and more expressionist. It mixes poetry, realism and provocation, while retaining an assertive and, towards the end, rather anti-clerical style…
These include Derrière les grilles du parc (1933), Aubaines (1934), L’étoile devient rouge (1940), Roses rouges pour moi (1943), Feuilles de chêne et lavande (1946), On attend un évêque (1955), Les tambours du père Ned (1958).
O’Casey became close to Brooks Atkinson’s communist movement and is said to be the author of : Anyone who honors or gives to the community is a communist”. His work “The Star Turns Red” can also be seen as a play flattering communist values.
He died in Torquay, Devonshire, in 1964.
