Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Most inventive of all, perhaps, was
James Joyce,
who broke new ground and captured
literary lightning in a bottle when he focused on Dublin's seedier side in a modern, stream-
of-consciousness style. His famous novel
Ulysses,
set on a single day (June 16, 1904), fol-
lows Dubliners on an odyssey through the city's pubs, hospitals, libraries, churches, and
brothels.
The
Abbey Theatre
(championedbyW.B.Yeats)wastheworld'sfirstnationaltheater,
built to house plays intended to give a voice to Ireland's flowering playwrights. When
J.
M. Synge
staged
The Playboy of the Western World
there in 1907, his unflattering comic
portrayal of Irish peasant life (and mention of women's underwear) caused riots. Twenty
years later,
Sean O'Casey
provoked more riots at the Abbey when his
Plough and the
Stars
production depicted the 1916 Uprising in a way that was at odds with the audience's
cherished views of their heroes.
In recent decades, the bittersweet Irish literary parade has been inhabited by tragically
volcaniccharacterslike
Brendan Behan,
whoexclaimed,“I'mnotawriterwithadrinking
problem...I'm a drinker with a writing problem.” Bleak poverty experienced in childhood
was the catalyst for
Frank McCourt
's memorable
Angela's Ashes.
Among the most cel-
