from Part II - Social Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2025
Like many well-known Irish writers, O’Casey chose to spend much of his life away from his homeland. However, this chapter examines how O’Casey rarely succumbed to sentiments of loss and exile that can be found in other similarly positioned writers. He was, in fact, far more likely to use the dual position of the migrant – simultaneously familiar with the home country and able to view it anew from a space of geographical and ideological distance – to query, critique, and satirise Ireland. The chapter spends time examining the way in the late plays Oak Leaves and Lavender, Cock-a-Doodle Dandy, The Drums of Father Ned, and Behind the Green Curtains deal centrally with Irish migrant characters.
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