For the Cause of Liberty by Terry Golway

Author:Terry Golway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Arthur Griffith

A collaboration of the three friends led to the adaptation of a folktale to stage comedy sponsored by the Literary Theatre. In the creative hothouse of Coole Park, Yeats and Hyde sketched out their interpretations of the tale, called Casadh an tSúgáin, or The Twisting of the Rope, a story about a poet from the west of Ireland and his pursuit of a village woman. Hyde took the notes, spent two days writing the play in Irish, and dictated the results to Lady Gregory. It debuted in Dublin on October 21, 1901, on the same bill with an English-language adaptation, co-written by Yeats, of the story of the mythological Gaelic lovers Diarmuid and Grainne. Casadh an tSúgáin demonstrated yet again how fine was the line between culture and politics. While Diarmuid and Grainne won polite applause and reviews, Casadh an tSúgáin, with Hyde himself playing the role of the poet, had the audience on its feet. Thought to be all but extinct, the Irish language was reborn on the Dublin stage. One reviewer said the performance was “a memorable one for Dublin and for Ireland.” 406

But it wasn’t enough for those who were beginning to appreciate art for more than just art’s sake. “Let Mr. Yeats give us a play in verse or prose that will rouse this sleeping land,” wrote the very same critic who wrote so glowingly of Casadh an tSúgáin. 407 “This land is ours, but we have ceased to realise that fact. We want drama that will make us realise it.”

Cathleen ni Houlihan made its debut on April 2, 1902. Although it seemed as though Yeats had supplied what his critic had asked of him, in fact the play was a collaboration with Lady Gregory, with Yeats apparently the junior partner. Maud Gonne became the personification of suffering Ireland, giving meaning to the lives of an eighteenth-century farming family concerned about their limited means. Gonne was a sensation. “In her, the youth of the country saw all that was magnificent in Ireland,” wrote one observer. 408 At the play’s climax, the hushed audience heard her recite the playwright’s salute to the heroes of the past:

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