The Plough and the Stars

Theatre play

The Plough and the Stars by Seán O’Casey (1880-1964) [more information]

Play synopsis

The Plough and the Stars (the name referring to the banner of the Irish Citizen Army during the Easter Rising in 1916) ‘is set in the Dublin tenements in the year 1916. It centres on a young married couple called Jack and Nora Clitheroe. Jack is a member of the Irish Citizen Army. Nora is ambitious to move out of the tenements and to prevent her husband from involving himself further in politics. Jack learns that she has burned a letter which tells him that he has been promoted Commandant and he is to lead a reconnaissance attack on Dublin Castle. Jack is furious and leaves the house at once. We get some insight into the particular quality of tenement life through the various characters. Mollser is a young girl who is the final stages of tuberculosis. She ironically tells Nora how she envies her health and happy home. Later on in the play Nora becomes pregnant and loses her child. She also goes mad with grief over the loss of her husband. The story shows the whole futility of violence and its devastating effect on people. Jack is killed in the rising. Bessie Burgess another tenement dweller who espouses the cause of the British is shot by British soldiers at the conclusion of the play’. (Source: http://www.skoool.ie/examcentre_sc.asp?id=1236).

Production history

First performed in 1926 at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

Date of transmission

Sunday 16 July 1967

Channel

BBC2

Production company

BBC

Credits

Playwright

Seán O’Casey (1880-1964)

Additional details

Extant status

No archival copy is known to exist.

Play tags

IRA (Irish Republican Army); Irish drama; Republic of Ireland, as theme or setting