| Sean O’Casey was born in Dublin in 1880 at | | | | dealt with the Civil War and the Easter Rising |
| 85 Upper Dorset St in the northern inner-city area | | | | respectively. Some audiences greeted The Plough |
| of Dublin. He grew up surrounded by the | | | | and the Stars with derision misinterpreting it as an |
| tenements that would form the backdrop of his | | | | anti-nationalist rather than an anti-war play. |
| ground-breaking plays. He joined the Gaelic League | | | | However, his plays pumped energy, vitality and |
| in 1906 and learned to speak Irish, he also | | | | cash into the Abbey Theatre. In 1929, the Abbey |
| became a member of the Irish Republican | | | | rejected O’Casey’s play The Silver |
| Brotherhood and became involved in the Irish | | | | Tassie, O’Casey was so disgusted he left |
| Transport and General Workers Union which | | | | Ireland to live in England for the rest of his life. He |
| represented the interests of the unskilled workers | | | | wrote a further fifteen plays but they were less |
| who lived in the Irish tenements. After early | | | | realist becoming more symbolic and expressionist. |
| rejections, his first play, The Shadow of the | | | | With the sole exception of Within the Gates, none |
| Gunman, was produced by The Abbey Theatre in | | | | of his later plays received either critical or |
| Dublin on 12 April 1923, it dealt with the impact of | | | | commercial success. He also wrote a six part |
| revolutionary politics on the normal people of | | | | autobiography known collectively as Mirror in my |
| Dublin. It was followed by Juno and the Paycock | | | | House. He died in 1864 at his home in Torquay, |
| (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926) which | | | | England. |