O'Casey, Seán (1884–1964)

Irish dramatist. His early plays are tragicomedies, blending realism with symbolism and poetry with vernacular (commonly spoken dialect) speech. They include The Shadow of a Gunman (1923), Juno and the Paycock (1924), and The Plough and the Stars (1926). Later plays include Red Roses for Me (1946) and The Drums of Father Ned (1959). His six-volume Autobiographies (1939–54) evokes his early impressions and memories of his childhood and dramatic career.

Born into a working-class Protestant family in Dublin, poverty dominated O'Casey's childhood after his father's death. Like Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw, he was a regular patron at the popular nationalist Queen's Theatre in Dublin. He was active in a number of nationalist and socialist organizations, but his subsequent scepticism over the politics of nationalism is prominent in the drama he wrote for the Abbey Theatre: The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars.

O'Casey moved to London in 1926, where his antiwar drama The Silver Tassie was produced in 1929, after a controversial rejection from the Abbey Theatre. Later he became increasingly experimental with plays such as The Star Turns Red (1940) and Oak Leaves and Lavender (1947). While his plays became increasingly successful in the USA, O'Casey remained in England until his death. The Drums of Father Ned was submitted to the 1958 Dublin Theatre Festival, but was withdrawn because of clerical intervention; as a result, O'Casey banned all professional productions of his plays in Ireland. The ban was lifted after his death.