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| Drama & Prose | Sundry remarks |
| Cry of humanity: ‘There must be the cry of humanity; it may be a ferocious cry, a bitter cry, an angry cry; but if it isn’t a human cry it isn’t Art.’ (Quoted in John O’Riordan, A Guide to O’Casey’s Plays, Macmillan 1984, p.78). |
| On women: ‘Women must be more courageous than men. Courage does not consist in just firing a pistol and killing you. I wouldn’t call that courage at all, I’d call it stupidity. [Woman’s courage consists in] fortitude – and patience –and understanding. Men are more idealistic, stupidly idealistic. They are not as realistic as women. The woman has to be nearer to the earth than the man.’ (Quoted in John O’Riordan, A Guide to O’Casey’s Plays, Macmillan 1984, p.16.) |
| Class act: ‘I have never tried to write about the upper classes, for I know too little about them.’ (Under a Coloured Cap, 1963, p.268). |
| “I believe in the freedom of Ireland and that England has no right to be here, but I draw the line when I hear the gunmen blowing about dying for the people when it’s the people that are dying for gunmen.” (Shadow of a Gunman.) |
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The Shadow of a Gunman [1923] (Three Plays ... &c., Macmillan/Pan. Edn.) - Programme note: ‘Any gunshots heard during the performance are part of the script. Members of the audience must at all times remain seated.’ Seamus Shields: ‘No wonder this unfortunate country is as it is, for you can’t depend upon the world of a single individual in it. I suppose he was too damn lazy to get up; he wanted the streets well aired first. - Oh Kathleen ni Houlihan, you way’s a thorny way.’ (Act. I; p.81-82.) Donal Davoren: ‘your religion is simply the state of being afraid that God will torture your soul in the next world as you are afraid that the Black and Tans will torture your body in this.’ (p.82.) Seamus: ‘That’s the Irish People all over - they treat a serious thing as a joke and a joke as a serious thing. Upon me soul, I’m beginning to believe that the Irish People aren’t never were, an’ never will be fit for self-government.’ (p.85.) Of Minnie Powell: ‘She is a girl of twenty-three, but the fact of being forced to earn her living, and to take care of herself, on account of her parents’ early death, has given her an assurance beyond her years. She has lost her sense of fear ... and consequently, is at ease in all places and before all persons, even those of a superior education, so long as she meets them in the atmosphere that surrounds the members of her own class.’ (pp.88-89.) Minnie: ‘Oh, there’s a thing for a Republican to be saying! But I know what you mean. it’s time to give up writing an’ take to the gun.’ Davoren: ‘Lovely little Minnie, and brave as well; brave little Minnie, and lovely as well’ (p.93.) Minnie: ‘[A]n’ do you think Minnie Powell cares whether they talk or no? She’s had to push her way through life up to this without help from anyone an’ she’s not goin’ to ask their leave, now to do what she wants to do.’ (p.93.) Seumas (of Minnie): A Helen of Troy come to live in our tenement! ... she’d give the world to be gaddin’ about with a gunman. an’ what ecstasy it ud give her if after a bit you were shot or hanged ... singing, “... for he fell in his Jacket Green”’ (p.109.) Seamus: ‘Kathleen ni Houlihan is very different now to the woman who used to play the harp an’ sing, “Weep on, weep on, your hour is past”, for she’s a ragin’ divil now, an’ if you only look crooked at her you’re sure of a punch in th’ eye.’ (p.110.) Seamus: ‘it’s the civilians that suffer; when there’s an ambush they don’t know where to run. Shot in the back to save the British Empire, an’ shot in the breast to save the soul of Ireland. I’m a Nationalist meself, right enough ... I believe in the freedom of Ireland, an’ that England has no right to be here, but I draw the line when I hear the gunmen blowin’ about dyin’ for the people, when it’s the people that are dyin’ for the gunmen!’ (Act. II; p.111.) The Auxiliary [to Seamus/Jimmie] ‘Ow, you’re a selt (he means Celt), one of the seltic race that speaks a lingo of its ahn, and that’s going to overthrow the British Empire - I don’t thing!’ (p.123.) Donal [to Seumas]: ‘Do you realise that she has been shot to save us? ... it’s your fault and mine, both; oh, we’re a pair of dastardly cowards to have let her do what she did ... ah me, alas! ... It’s a terrible to think that little Minnie is dead, but it’s still more terrible to think that Davoren and Shields are alive!’ (pp.129-30). Note: Minnie Powell was first played by Eileen O’Casey.
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Juno and the Paycock [1924] (Three Plays ... &c., Macmillan/Pan. Edn.) - Stage directions:
of Mary: ‘Two forces are working in her mind - one, through the circumstances of her life, pulling her back; the other, through the influence of the books she has read, pushing her forward. The opposing forces are apparent in her speech and her manners, both of which are degraded by her environment, and improved by her acquaintance - slight though it be - with literature.’ (Three Plays, Macmillan/Pan 1980 p.5.)
Of Juno/Mrs Boyle: ‘She is forty-five years of age, and twenty years ago she must have been a pretty woman; but her face has now assumed that look which ultimately settles down upon the faces of women of the working class; a look of listless monotony and harassed anxiety’; ‘were circumstances favourable she would probably be a handsome, active and clever woman’ (stage directions, Act I; Pan ed., London, 1980, p.6.)
TEXT. [Juno of Capt. Boyle]: ‘he wore out the Health Insurance long ago, he’s afther wearin’ out the Unemployment Dole, an’, now, he’s thryin’ to wear out me!’ (p.7.) Mrs Boyle: ‘When the employers sacrifice wan victim, the Trade Unions go wan betther be sacrificin’ a hundred.’ (p.8.) Mrs Boyle: ‘Amn’t I nicely handicapped with the whole o’ yous! I don't know that any o’ yous ud do without your ma ...’ (p.9.) Juno: ‘I killin’ myself workin’, an’ he struttin’ about from mornin’ till night like a paycock!’ (p.10). Capt. Boyle: ‘it’s [the will] a responsibility, Joxer, a great responsibility.’ (p.31). Johnny: ‘Blessed Mother o’ God, shelter me, shelther your son!’ Juno ‘catches him in her arms’ (p.38.) Mrs Tancred: ‘Ah, what’s the pains I suffered bringin’ him into the world to carry him to his cradle, to the pains I’m sufferin’ now, carryin’ him out o’ the world to bring him to his grave.’ (p.45.) Mary Boyle: ‘There isn’t a God, if there was he wouldn’t let these things happen!’ Mrs. Boyle: ‘Mary you mustn’t say them things. We’ll want all the help we can get from God an’ His Blessed Mother now! These things have nothin’ to do with the Will o’ God. Ah, what can God do agen the stupidity o’ men!’ (p.70.) Mary Boyle: ‘My poor child that’ll have no father!’ Mrs. Boyle: ‘it’ll have what’s far betther – it’ll have two mothers’ (p.71.) ‘Maybe I didn’t feel sorry enough for Mrs Tancred when her poor son was found as Johnny’s been found now ... It’s well I remember what she said – an’ it’s my turn to say it now ...’ (p.71.) Mrs. Boyle: ‘Mother o’ God, Mother o’ God, have pity on us all! Blessed Virgin, where were you when we darlin’ son was riddled with bullets, when me darlin’ son was riddled with bullets? Sacred Heart o’ Jesus, take away out hearts o’ stone, and give us heart o’ flesh! Take away this murdherin’ hate, an’ give us Thine own eternal love!’ (Three Plays, Juno, pp.71-72; repeating prayer of Mrs Tancred, p.46.)
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The Plough and the Stars [1926] (Three Plays ... &c.; Macmillan/Pan Edn.) - Dedication: ‘To the gay laughter of my mother at the gate of the grave.’ Stage directions: ‘The home of the Clitheroes ... consists of the front and back drawing-rooms in a fine old Georgian house, struggling for its life against the assaults of time, and the more savage assaults of the tenants.’ (Three Plays, Pan edn., p.133.)
TEXT. [Fluther reads:] “Great Demonstration and torchlight procession around places in th’ city sacred to the memory of Irish Patriots, to be concluded be a meetin’ at which will be taken an oath of fealty to th; Irish Republic” (p.139.) Mrs Grogan, ‘There’ll be blood yet.’ (p.139.) [...] Rosie: ‘You’re no man ... I’m a woman, anyhow, an’ if I’m a prostitute aself, I have me feelin’s.’ (p.175.) Lieut. Langon: ‘Ireland is greater than a mother.’ Clitheroe: ‘Ireland is greater than a wife’ (p.178.) The Voice of the Man: ‘Our foes are strong, but strong as the are, they cannot undo the miracles of God, [...] but fools, the fools, the fools! – they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland, unfree, shall never be at peace!’ (p.178) Bessie: ‘Go on get your guns if yous are men ... Oh yous are all nicely shanghaied now! ... Stabbin’ in th’ back th’ men that are dyin; in the threnches for them!’ (182-84.) Nora: ‘They told me I shamed my husband an’ th’ women of Ireland be carryin’ on the way I was ... They said th’ women must learn to be brave an’ cease to be cowardly ... me who risked more for love than they would for hate!’ (p.184.) Bessie: ‘I can only think of me own self ... An’ there’s no woman gives a son or a husband to be killed – if they say it, they’re lyin’, against God, nature an’ against themselves!’ (184.) Bessie: ‘... they’re afraid to say they’re afraid! [...]’ (pp.184-85; for longer extracts, see attached.]
The Silver Tassie [1928] (Three More Plays, Pan edn., 1978) - Susie: ‘Teddy Foran and Harry Heegan have gone to live their own way in another world. Neither I nor you can lift them out of it. No longer can they do the things we do. We can’t give sight to the blind or make the lame walk. We would if we could. It is the misfortune of war. As long as wars are waged, we shall be vexed by woe; strong legs shall be made useless and bright eyes made dark. But we, who have come through the fire unhamred, must go on living. com along, and take your part in life. Come along, Barney, and take your partner into the dance!’ (Three More Plays, Pan edn., 1978, p.106).
Within the Gates (1933) [The Dreamer:] ‘You fought the good fight, Jannice, and you kept the faith: Hail and farewell, sweetheart; for ever and for ever, hail and farewell!’
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Red Roses for Me [1942] (Three More Plays, Pan Edn. 1978) - stage directions. Of Ayamonn Brayden: ‘His is tall, well built, twenty-tow or so, with deep brown eyes, fair hair, rather bushy, but tidily kept, and his face would remind an interested observer of a rather handsome, firm-minded, thoughtful, and good-humoured bulldog.’ (p.226.)
‘It’s I who know that well: when it was dark, you always carried the sun in your hand for me; when you suffered me to starve rather than thrive towards death in an Institution, you gave me life to pay with as a richer child is given a coloured ball.’ (Red Roses for Me, London 1963, p.135.)
TEXT. Ayamonn: ‘We live together now; live in the light of the burning bush. I tell you life is not one thing, but many things, a wide branching flame, grand and good to see and feel, dazzling to the eye of no-one living it. I am not one to carry fear about with me as a priest carries the Host. Let the timid tiptoe through the way where the paler blossoms grow; my feet shall be where the redder roses grow, though they bear long thorns, sharp and piercing, thick among them!’ Sheila: ‘I’ll listen no more; I’ll go. You want to make me a spark in a mere illusion. I’ll go.’ (p.239.) Singer, ‘... But jewel’d desire in a bosom, most pearly, / Carries a rich bundle of red roses for me!’ (p.247.) Ayamonn [trysting with Sheila:] ‘... the bridge of vision where we first saw Aengus and his coloured birds of passion passing’ (p.248.) Ayamonn, ‘To throw the whole world in colour on a canvas though it be but a man’s fine face, a woman’s shape asthride of a cushioned couch, or a three-bordered house on a hill, done with a glory; even delaying God, busy forgin’ a new world to stay awhile an’ look upon their loveliness.’ (p.251.) Roory, ‘Ruskin. Curious name; not Irish, is it? (p.251.) [Roory and Ayemonn sing Th’ Bould Fenian Men:] ‘Our courage so many have thought to be agein’/Now flames like a brilliant new star in th’ sky; // And Danger is proud to be call’d a good brother,/For Freedom has buckled her swordon her thigh. // Then out to th’ place, where th’ battle is bravest,/Where th’ noblest an’ meanest fight fierce in th’ fray. / Republican abnners shall mock at th’ foemen,/And Fenians shall turn a dark night into day!’ (pp.252-53.)
Act. II. Sheila [elucidating her phrase, ‘foolish things’:] ‘You know yourself, Ayamonn: trying to aint, going mad about Shakespeare, and consorting with a kind of people that can only do you harm.’ (p.263.) Dymphna [on apparition of Queen of Eblana:] ‘... along the street She came stately. Blinded be the coloured light that shone around about her, the child fell back ...’; 1st man, ‘Regal and rpoud She was, an; wondrous so that me eyes failed me; me knees thrembled an’ bent low, an; me heart whispered a silent prayer to itself as th’ vision passed me by, an; I fancied I saw a smile on Her holy face.’
Act. III. Rector, ‘I’ve read that tens of thoughs of such as those [whom Insepctor has called ‘flotsam and jetsam’] followed Swift to the grave.’ Inspector, ‘Indeed, sir? A queer man, the poor demented Dean; a right queer man.’ (p.279) Rector [to Inspector, who has spoken of Ayamonn as ‘a neat slab of similar slime’], ‘You wrong yourself to say so: Ayamonn Breydon has within him the Kingdom of heaven. and so, indeed, may these sad things we turn away from.’ (p.280.) Finnoola, ‘What would a girl, born in a wild Cork valley, among the moutnains, brought up to sing the songs of her fathers, what would she choose but the parched coat, shaky shoes, an’ white hungry face of th’ Irish rebel? But their shabbiness was threaded with th’ colours from the garments of Finn Mac cool of th’ golden hair, Goll Mac Morna of th’ big blows, Caoilte of th’ flying feet, an’ Oscar of th’ invincible spear.’ (p.281.) [Eeada, Dymphna, Finnoola:] ‘a bitther city ... a black an’ bitther city ...’ [1st, 3nd, 3r Man:] ‘a batthered, tatthered whore, bullied by too long a life ... An’ her three gates are castles of poverty, penance, an; apin’ (p.285.) Ayamonn, ‘She’s what our hands have made her. We pray too much and work too little. Meanness, spite, and common pattherns are woven thick through all her glory; but her glory’s there for open eyes to see.’ (p.285). Ayamonn [addressing the girls by turn:], ‘Friends we would that you should live a greater life: we will that all of us shall live a greater life. Our shtrike is yours. ... All men and women quick with life are fain to venture forward. The apple grows for you to eat. the violet grows for you to wear. Young maiden, another world is in your womb’ [p.287]. Ayamonn, ‘Our city’s in the grip of God!’ (p.289).
Act IV. Mrs Breydon, ‘his mind, like his poor father’s, hates what he sees as a sham; an’ shams are powerful things, mustherin’ at their backs guns that shoot, big jails that hide their foes, and gallows to choke th’ young cryin’ out against them when th’ stones are silent.’ (p.297.) Ayamonn [to the Inspector:] ‘A shiling’s little to you, and less to many; to us it is our Shechinah, showing us God’s light is near; showing us the way in which our feet must go; a sun-ray in our face; the first step taken in a march of a thousand miles.’ (p.298.) Foster [almost screaming:] ‘the Loyola boyos are out to fight another buttle with th’ men o’ King Bully!’ (p.304.) Rector, ‘the cross of Christ between him [Ayamonn] and all harm!’ (p.305.) Rector [on hearing of death of Ayamonn:] ‘Oh, Ayamonn, Ayamonn, my dear, dear friend. Oh, Lord, open Though mine eyes that I may see Thee, even as in a glass darkly, in all this mischief and all this woe!’ (p.307.) Rector, ‘all things in life, the eveil and the good, the orderly and disorderly, are mixed with the life of the Church Militant here on earth. We honour our brother, not for what may have been an error in him, but for the turht for ever before his face.’ (p.309). Inspector, ‘It wasn’t a very noble thing to die for a single shilling.’ Sheila, ‘Maybe he saw the single shilling in th’ shape of a new world.’ (p.310.) Sheila, ‘He said that roses red were never meant for me ... Dear loneliness tonight must help me thing it out, for that’s just what he said.’ (p.311.) Rector, ‘He’s not so lonesome as you think, dear friend, but alive and laughing in the midst of God’s gay welcome.’ Brennan [sings song]: ‘A sober black shawl hides her body entire,/touch’d be th’ sun.’
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The Star Turns Red (1940] (Collected Plays, II) - The Old Man: ‘The workers are getting like the tides now - always either coming or or going out, with theit lightning strikes, stay-in strikes, stay-out strikes, sit-down strikes, and go-easy strikes. Srikes to bring war about and strikes to keep war away, till the whole land’s quivering with th’rush around of revolution. I’m telling you it’s dangerous; and there’s a deep curse in the danger.’ (p.244). ]
Purple Dust (1940) - [Drishogue:] ‘I’m fighting for the people. I’m fighting against the stormy pillagers who blackened the time-old walls of Guernica, and tore them down; who loaded their cannon in th’ name of Christ to kill the best men Spain could boast of; who stripped the olive groves and tore up orange trees to make deep graves for men, heaping the women on the men, and the children on the women.’ (Collected Plays, IV, p.61).
Cock-a-Doodle-Dandy (1949) - [Fr. Domineer:] ‘Be assured, good people, all’s well, now. The house is safe for all. The evil things have been banished from the dwelling. Most of the myrmidons of Anticlericus, Secularius, an’ Odeonius have been destroyed. The Civic Guard and the soldiers of Feehanna Fawl will see to the few who escaped. We can think quietly again of our Irish Sweep. (Collected Plays, IV, p.199).
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The Bishop’s Bonfire (1955) - Codger Sleehaun: ‘Meadows a medley of mawood an’ of dock, with rushes crepin’ in from the brook’s bank. Grass that’s tired of life before it’s quarter grown. he calls his cattle cattle! The best of them cross-eyed with the strain of spillin’ out a few hundred gallons a year; spillin’ out what all know is an illusion of what it ought to be; with every paser-by turnin’ his head aside so’s not to see the tormented look on their gobs an’ they complainin’ silently to God against the dawn’s lift-up of another day.’ Canon Burren to Fr. Boheroe: ‘You’re clever, Father - and sincere, I hope - but your cleverness seems only to make persons more unhappy than they were. I’m afraid I cannot commend the way you try to lead my poor people towards illusions. Can’t you understand that their dim eyes are able only for a little light? ... You’re very popular with our people, but remember that the love they may have for you doesn’t come near the fear they have of Reiligan ... or the reverence they must show for their Parish Priest.’ (1955 edn., pp.79-80.)
The Drums of Father Ned (1960) - in answer to the question “Where is Fr. Ned?”: ‘Here; be he might be anywhere; though some may think he’s nowhere; again me may be everywhere; but he’s always with th’ drums’ (Act. II.) (Nora McGilligan to Fr. Fillifogue:) ‘You see, Father, we’re fed up bein’ afraid of our own shaddas’ll tell us what we’re thinkin’ ... Doonavale has become th’ town of th’ shut mouth’; Fr. Fillifogue: ‘Youse see, youse hear? This is all along of th’ College lettin’ th’ students wear jeans. I warned th’ Chancellor that allowing the students to dress like manual labourers would have a Communistic tendency and influence. My warning went unheeded, and ... this is one result.’ (1960 edn., pp.98-99; cited with the foregoing in JohRn Jordan, ‘Illusion and Actuality’, in Ayling, ed., Sean O’Casey, 1969, pp.143-61).
Cathleen Listens In (performed Abbey Oct. 1923), ‘Ah, the house is hardly worth livin’ in [...]. the insides in a shockin’ state.’ (Quoted in Joseph Lee, Ireland 1912-1985, Politics and Society, Cambridge UP 1989.)
The Story of the Irish Citizen Army by P. Ó Cathasaigh [pseud.] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919)- Preface epigraph, four lines of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar [‘Answer every man directly, ... &c’]. ‘The author ventures to hope that this humble attempt to reveal some of the hidden things correlative with the origin and development of the Irish Citizen Army will prove interesting to all who participated in the motives which inspires its creation, and, indeed, even to those who viewed its activities with suspicion and mistrust.’ (p.iv; see longer extracts, infra.)
Inisfallen, Fare Thee Well (1949): ‘He would hold the wisdom and courage that these conditions had given him. Wheresoever he would go, whomsoever he might meet, be the plays never so noble in rank and ‘, he, O’Casey, would ever preserve, ever wear - though he would never flaunt it - the tattered bag of his tribe.’ (Macmillan Edn., p.287.)
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Sundry remarks
Letter to Desmond MacCarthy [ late 1940s]: ‘I don’t loathe the Roman Catholic Church. That is a wide term, embracing all the souls baptised into its communion, and even those baptised outside of it. The cardinals and bishops form a tiny part of it. I loathe those who are turning her liturgy into vulgar nonsense and her temples into dens of thieves. Dante said this about the famous monastery of Monte Cassino - that the monks had turned the beautiful place of St Benedict into a den of thieves. No intelligent man could possibly loathe the dogmas embedded in the “deposits of faith left by the apostles”. The idea of the Incarnation, the ascent, the coming of the paraclete, and all the moral philosophy, the poetic tales connected with these, are beautiful; and though not accepted either in substance or in fact [by me], remain beautiful, and I am not the one to loathe the lovely.’
Note: David Krause remarks of the O’Casey-Yeats correspondence in the mid-1930s: ‘the surprising way the usually fiery O’Casey had apparently softened and tried to “have it out” in a peaceful way with Yeats in the mid-1930s. From clues I had pieced together in various letters, a pattern of reconciliation initiated by a non-vindictive O’Casey was encouraged by a grateful Yeats.’ (Idem; A Self-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Sean O’Casey’s Letters, Dolmen 1968; see Krause, ‘Remembering Liam: An Epiphany of Friendship’, in Irish Literary Supplement , Fall, 1992, pp.26-30.)
W. Yeats and revival leaders: ‘[G]ods and half-gods ... their sneering, lofty conception of what they called culture ... was but a vain conceit in themselves which they used for their own encouragement in the pitiable welter of a small achievement.’ (Autobiographies, 2: 157)
James Joyce: ‘Like Joyce, it is only through an Irish scene that my imagination can weave a way.’ (Blasts and Benedictions, 1967, p.144) [Quoted in Ronald Ayling, Sean O’Casey: Modern Judgements, 1969, Introduction.]
Samuel Beckett: ‘I have nothing to do with Beckett. He isn’t in me; nor am I in him. I am not waiting for Godot to bring me life; I am after life myself. And there is life and energy even in decay (not Beckett’s but nature’s), for dead leaves turn to loam and dry bones to phosphates.’ (Blasts and Benedictions, Macmillan 1967, p.51; quoted in Ronald Ayling, op. cit., Intro.)
On 1916: ‘Cathleen Ni Houlihan, in her bare feet is singing, for her pride that had almost gone is come back again. In tattered gown and hair uncombed she sings, shaking the ashes from her hair, she is singing of men that in battle array ... march with banner and fife to the death, for their land ... The face of Ireland twitches when the guns again sing, but she stands ready, waiting to fasten around her white neck this jewelled story of death, for these are they who will speak to her people for ever; that Spirit that had gone from her bosom returns.’ (From Autobiographies; quoted in Richard Kearney, ‘Myth and Terror’, in The Crane Bag, 2. 1 & 2, 1978; rep. in Crane Bag Book, 1982, pp.273-87; p.287, n.17.)
On 1916 [2]: ‘Is the Ireland that is pouring to the picture houses, to the dance halls, to the football matches, remembering with tear-dimmed eyes all that Easter Week stands for?’ (Letters, 1: 170-170.) ‘The terrible beauty of a tall-hat is born to Ireland’ (Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well, p.134; cited in Noël Debeer, ‘The Irish Novel Looks Backward’, in Patrick Rafroidi & Maurice Harmon, eds., The Irish Novel in Our Time, Université de Lille 1975-76, pp.106-23; p.121.)
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On Telefís Eireann: ‘Now, on the eve of the New Year of 1962, Eire is going to flood the farms and firesides with rotten sights and sounds saved from the dustbins of England and the garbage cans of America and call it all Culture!’ (Under a Coloured Cap; q.p..)
The Silver Tassie (rejected by the Abbey): ‘it was years after, when he had left Ireland forever, that bitterness, mingled with scorn, overtook him, for he began to realise that the plays refused by the Abbey Theatre were a lot better than many they had welcomed, and had played on to their stage with drums and colours.’ (Autobiographies; quoted Colston, in Ronald Ayling, ed., Sean O’Casey: Modern Judgements, 1969, p.58.) Further: ‘he would give the title of the song to his next play. He would set down without malice or portly platitude the shattered enterprise of life to be endured by many of those who, not understanding the bloodied melody of war, went forth to fight, to die, or to return again with tarnished bodies and complaining minds. He would show a wide expanse of war in the midst of timorous hope and overweening fear; amidst a galaxy of guns; silently show the garlanded horror of war. [.../] He would do it in a new way.’ (Rose and Crown [1950], Autob., Vol. II, Macmillan 1981, p.270; quoted in Brendan Kennelly, Journey into Joy: Selected Prose, ed. Ake Persson, Bloodaxe 1994, 88-89.)
The mind of Ireland: ‘I know the mind of Ireland because I am within it; I know the heart of Ireland because I am one of its corners; I know the five senses of Ireland because I am within them and they are within me; they bid me look, and when I look, I see; they bid me listen and when I listen I hear.’ (Feathers from the Green Crow, p.164; cited by Danny Chambers, UUC, MA.)
‘Parliamentarian[ism] was a sinking fire, and, now, not all the united breath of a united party could ever again succeed in blowing it into an inspiring flame. The new wine of new thoughts and new activities was everywhere bursting the old bottles, but though the wine has a Sinn Féin label it certain has not an absolutely Sinn Féin flavour, for labour has tinged it with a brighter colour and strengthened it with a stimulating cordial.’ (‘Afterword’ of The Story of the Irish Citizen Army, 1919; cited quoted in Herbert Coston, ‘Prelude to Playwriting’, in Sean O’Casey: Modern Judgements, ed. Ronald Ayling, 1969, p.55.)
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