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Women' Theatre in Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Steve Wilmer
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Abstract

So close was the relationship between women and the Irish literary and theatrical renaissance that the severely diminished feminist role in contemporary Irish cultural and theatrical life contrasts all the more revealingly with the early achievements. In this article, which is an expanded version of a paper given at the 1990 conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research at Glasgow University, Steve Wilmer etches in the historical perspective, notably the significance of women's writing to the nationalist as well as the suffragist movement, and outlines the present situation, in which the solid advances being made by women directors and administrators are only slowly being reflected in an increase in women's theatre writing and support for feminist theatre groups, let alone the assumption of real theatrical power. Steve Wilmer teaches in the Samuel Beckett Centre at Trinity College Dublin, and is the author of several plays, including Scenes from Soweto.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 28 , November 1991 , pp. 353 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

Notes and References

1. Interview with Margaretta D'Arcy, August 1990.

2. Carolyn Swift, ‘Lecture on Women in the Irish Theatre’, unpublished, n.d.

3. See Hunt, Hugh, The Abbey: Ireland's National Theatre 1904–1979 (Gill and Macmillan, 1979), p. 240–2.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 248–9.

5. Quoted in Hunt, op. cit., p. 29.

6. Hogan, and Kilroy, , The Irish Literary Theatre 1899–1901 (Dolmen Press, 1975), p. 150.Google Scholar

7. Digges, Dudley, ‘A Theatre was Made’, in The Abbey Theatre, ed. Mikhail, E. H. (Barnes and Noble, 1988), p. 32–3.Google Scholar

8. Irish Citizen, 3 May 1913. Susanne Day also wrote a propagandist one-act play about the life of female sweatshop workers called Toilers. See Feeny, W. J., Drama at Hardwick Street (Fairleigh Dickinson, 1984), p. 52.Google Scholar

9. Brown, S. J., ed., A Guide to Books on Ireland (Hodges Figgis, 1912), p. 290.Google Scholar

10. Irish Citizen, 8 May 1915.

11. Irish Citizen, 4 April 1914 and 18 April 1914.

12. See Irish Citizen, 26 June 1915, and Levenson, L., With Wooden Sword (Gill and Macmillan, 1983), p. 208.Google Scholar

13. Irish Citizen, 4 April 1914.

14. For a picture of Markievicz in costume, see Owens, Rosemary, Smashing Times (Attic Press, 1984), p. 80.Google Scholar

15. Irish Citizen, 2 May 1914.

16. Bean na hEireann, I, No. 9, p. 8.

17. The ‘cat and mouse act’ enabled the British government to release suffragists whose health was suffering from the hunger strike, and then re-arrest them when their health improved.

18. The Freeman's Journal, 25 April 1914.

19. Norman, Diana, Terrible Beauty (Poolbeg Press, 1988), p. 156.Google Scholar

20. Padraic Colum, ‘Early Days of the Irish Theatre’, in The Abbey Theatre, ed. Mikhail, p. 61. See also Hunt, op. cit., p. 17; Hogan, and Kilroy, , Laying the Foundations 1902–1904 (Dolmen Press, 1976), p. 11–17Google Scholar; and Hogan, and Kilroy, , eds., Lost Plays of the Irish Renaissance (Proscenium Press, 1970), p. 15–16Google Scholar. Maud Gonne also wrote a nationalist play, Dawn, which was published in Arthur Griffith's influential nationalist periodical The United Irishman in 1904.

21. Bean na hEireann, I, No. 13, p. 8.

22. Quoted in Kohfeldt, , Lady Gregory (Andre Deutsch, 1985), p. 150Google Scholar; for Lady Gregory's portrayal of Cathleen Ni Houlihan, p. 259. Commenting on a revival of the play a year before the Easter Rising, the Irish Citizen hinted at its sexist implications: ‘Alas! for Ireland's maidens, when Ireland's spell is on her sons! Perchance Kathleen ni Houlihan must wander till both bride and bridegroom go forth together to serve her’ (Irish Citizen, 2 January 1915).

23. Interview with Jane Daly, August 1990.

24. Carolyn Swift, ‘Women and Writing’, unpublished, n.d., p. 4.

25. Roche, Anthony, ‘Ann Devlin's Ourselves Alone: Theatre and Politics in Ireland’, programme for Arena Theatre, Washington, production, 1987.Google Scholar

26. Interview with Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy and Joni Crone, August 1990.

27. Interview with Annie Kilmartin, August 1990.

28. Interviews with pam Brighton and Marie Jones, August 1990.

29. Irish Times, 2 August 1990.

30. Interview with Ann Hartigan, January 1991.

31. Interviews with Garry Hynes and Nell McCafferty, August 1990.

32. Interviews with Garry Hynes and Jane Daly, August 1990.