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Jenny Farrell<\/strong> reviews<\/em> Sean O\u2019Casey: Political Activist and Writer<\/a> by Paul O\u2019Brien\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Anybody who has come across the work of independent scholar and critic Paul O\u2019Brien knows that his interest lies in the radical tradition of literature and history. He came to my attention with his book Shelley and Revolutionary Ireland<\/em> (2002). Now, O\u2019Brien has published an impressive volume on Sean O\u2019Casey.<\/p>\n He is perhaps the first Irish author to look comprehensively at the dramatist in political and historical terms, firmly setting the plays into this context from a left-wing perspective. An extensive bibliography reveals the formidable amount of specialist reading that informs this study.<\/p>\n It is accessibly written and sheds light on details of working-class Dublin and international history. An interest in one of Ireland\u2019s great playwrights, a keenness in discovering more about his plays and times is all that is needed to enjoy the book.<\/p>\n While the study is an important one for O\u2019Casey scholars to be aware of, it is refreshingly equally directed at readers beyond academia. O\u2019Brien\u2019s book is not a biography, nor is the book, as its author puts it, \u201can exclusive critical or literary analysis of his work, but an exploration of the interplay between the political and historical context of O\u2019Casey\u2019s life and its representation in his drama and prose and the way O\u2019Casey negotiated the interplay between politics and aesthetics.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien\u2019s interest in Irish labour history is evident in his informative account of late 19th and early 20th century Dublin working-class life and events, following O\u2019Casey\u2019s development and the context from which his plays arose. Into this fall the writer\u2019s involvement with the Irish language and nationalist movement.<\/p>\n National liberation and the class struggle<\/strong><\/p>\n O\u2019Casey joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1905 and was later instrumental in the establishment of the Irish Citizen Army, which he left before the 1916 Rising. As O\u2019Brien points out, O\u2019Casey\u2019s defining experience had been the Great Lockout of 1913, and much space is rightly devoted to his trade union activism and to Jim Larkin, the organiser of the 1913 Great Lockout.<\/p>\n Less space is spared for the fellow leader of the lockout, the Marxist James Connolly, with whom O\u2019Casey broke. O\u2019Brien sheds some light on this disagreement, focusing on O\u2019Casey\u2019s position which prioritised the class struggle, above the struggle for national liberation, which required an alliance with the class enemy.<\/p>\n Here, it could have been useful to outline Connolly\u2019s stance of an anti-imperialist alliance in a little more detail for balance. Where O\u2019Casey shows part of the truth as he sees it, the reader would benefit from understanding the full picture from a left-wing point of view.<\/p>\n This breach was significant in terms of the position O\u2019Casey took in relation to the Easter Rising and subsequently, informing his three early Dublin plays, which each examine momentous events concerned with the struggle for Irish independence. It might have been helpful for readers not especially conversant with the specific details of the rising, if O\u2019Brien had made clearer that O\u2019Casey did not accurately reflect the degree of working-class involvement in 1916.<\/p>\n A significant proportion of the forces of both the Irish Citizens Army and the Volunteers were working-class people, who identified with and fought for the vision of the Easter Proclamation of a Democratic Republic: \u201cWe declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.\u201d<\/p>\n The development of working-class drama<\/strong><\/p>\n O\u2019Brien\u2019s extensive reading and knowledge of drama and the arts is reflected throughout the book and kindles reader interest in the development of working-class drama. This information is very welcome and enriching in a book about O\u2019Casey, an aspect that is rarely included in O\u2019Casey criticism, and essential to illuminating the context from which grew the first working-class dramatist of international standing, writing in English.<\/p>\n The chapter entitled The New Drama <\/em>provides much detail and a sense of the times which produced this drama as well as the importance attached to cultural expression and playwriting by the revolutionary working class.<\/p>\n The author\u2019s refreshingly wide awareness of European theatre is evident in his presentation of O\u2019Casey in the context of the left-wing European playwrights of the 1920s and \u201930s \u2014 Brecht, and Toller, but also Denis Johnston in Britain and the wave of expressionism that characterised the era.<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien is similarly well versed in the history of the Abbey and O\u2019Casey\u2019s struggle for his plays to be performed there, his relationship with Yeats and Augusta Gregory as well as his final resignation and departure for England when The Silver Tassie<\/em> was rejected.<\/p>\n While O\u2019Brien devotes most space to discussions of the Dublin tragedies, he is aware of O\u2019Casey\u2019s later plays and brings them into the study, setting each in its time, introducing and discussing them in terms of the writer\u2019s outlook. This is significant: O\u2019Casey\u2019s canon beyond the Dublin trilogy is little known in Ireland and the Anglophone world and his fantastic mature plays have rarely if ever been performed here.<\/p>\n The situation was different in the socialist countries, where O\u2019Casey was a standard part of the repertoire and known mainly for his later work. In the GDR, O\u2019Casey was one of the most frequently staged Western dramatists.<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien creates an interest in these later plays and presents their artistic as well as political merit. O\u2019Casey himself, writing at almost 80 years old, affirmed: \u201cI am still a republican, a communist and, in a way, a member of the Gaelic League.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien relates that O\u2019Casey had been approached by the Irish Workers League to support the future general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, Michael O\u2019Riordan, in the May 1951 elections. Although O\u2019Casey replied saying his endorsement would damage O\u2019Riordan\u2019s chances, and that he would instead donate towards the fund, his affirmation of O\u2019Riordan in the same letter was used in the election leaflet.<\/p>\n Robert Lowery states: \u201cHis ardent enthusiasm and lifelong adulation for the USSR, which he considered one of the world\u2019s greatest human experiments in creating a society of a new type, deserves primacy in evaluating his socialist legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien states his purpose is to concentrate \u201con a political reading of O\u2019Casey on his terms,\u201d and he does this for large sections of the book. He departs from this approach when discussing the dramatist\u2019s position as a lifelong supporter of the communist movement and the Soviet Union, where his own position takes precedence over O\u2019Casey\u2019s.<\/p>\n When this context arises, O\u2019Casey is associated exclusively with the term Stalinism and any differences with the CPGB are highlighted and praised. Sean O\u2019Casey: Political Activist and Writer<\/em> is an interesting, informative and enjoyable read and a valuable addition to the canon of O\u2019Casey commentary. Although it is a book of academic criticism, it surpasses the narrow reach of the genre and deserves a wide readership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jenny Farrell reviews Sean O\u2019Casey: Political Activist and Writer by Paul O\u2019Brien\u00a0 Anybody who has come across the work of independent scholar and critic Paul O\u2019Brien knows…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":456,"featured_media":15619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1662],"tags":[1902],"class_list":["post-15621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theatre-2","tag-james-connolly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/456"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}