Drama out of a crisis: James Connolly’s Under Which Flag (1916) and Teresa Deevy’s The Wild Goose (1936)

Lusk, K. and Maley, W. (2022) Drama out of a crisis: James Connolly’s Under Which Flag (1916) and Teresa Deevy’s The Wild Goose (1936). Irish Studies Review, 30(4), pp. 453-475. (doi: 10.1080/09670882.2022.2127642)

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Abstract

A distinctive strategy of remembrance in Irish historical drama is the depiction of a current crisis through allusion to another traumatic passage in the deep or recent past. In this essay we examine two relatively neglected Irish plays staged twenty years apart which were produced at key moments of reversal and reflection, and which concentrate on female agency, the cyclical Irish curse of betrayal, anxieties of masculinity, and the clash of morality and law. James Connolly’s Under Which Flag? (1916) and Teresa Deevy’s The Wild Goose (1936) are exemplary instances of how Irish historical drama approaches crisis and commemoration. In each case, by returning respectively to the Fenian Rising of 1867 and events surrounding the Treaty of Limerick of 1691, Connolly and Deevy are able to argue for the continuity of crisis in ways that avoid the fatalism that characterises less nuanced forms of dwelling on and in the past.

Item Type:Articles
Keywords:James Connolly, Teresa Deevy, Easter 1916, Treaty of Limerick, historical drama, colonialism.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Lusk, Kirsty and Maley, Professor Willy
Authors: Lusk, K., and Maley, W.
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
Journal Name:Irish Studies Review
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:0967-0882
ISSN (Online):1469-9303
Published Online:27 September 2022
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2022 The Authors
First Published:First published in Irish Studies Review 30(4) 453-475
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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