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As a leading member of a late 19th-century and early
20th-century literary movement known as the Irish Renaissance, dramatist Sean
O’Casey wrote plays about Irish topics. Born in the slums of Dublin, O’Casey
expressed a sympathy for the Irish lower classes. His plays often portray the
complexities of his homeland’s struggle for independence. Set in the Dublin
tenements before and during the Easter Rebellion of 1916, The Plough and the
Stars (1926) paints a critical picture of the Irish people, condemning
their rhetoric and bravado for its human costs. This excerpt is recited by an
actor.