I heard the song, Red Roses For Me, recently. Written by
Sean O’Casey in 1943 for his play of the same name, it unleashed a wave of
memories.
The commercial failure of the play caused O’Casey to veer
away from theatre and write an amazing autobiography. We’re all the better for
it.
Born in 1880 into the shabby genteel world of a lower middle
class Dublin Protestant family, Sean was six when his father died leaving a
family of 13 to fend for itself. As O’Casey would later somewhat drily recall,
“All the world’s a stage and most of us are woefully unrehearsed.”
Because of an eye disease Sean’s schooldays were few; however,
he taught himself to read and in his early teens mastered Shakespeare.
His lifelong passions were theatre, music, and politics; he
mixed them with abandon.
Long on principles, short on patience, Sean O’Casey did not
suffer fools easily and never forgot a slight.
If his life was etched in poverty O’Casey refused to be
humbled by it. Indeed he was fired from his position as a lowly clerk in
Eason’s newspaper business for refusing to doff his cap when receiving his
wages.
Sean O’Casey doffed his cap to no man and was consequently
often unemployed.
He was even less successful in affairs of the heart, for his
lack of income and Protestantism severely limited his marriage prospects in the
largely Catholic world he inhabited.
Nonetheless, he threw himself into the churning political
and cultural life of early 20th Century Dublin, and crossed paths –
and often swords – with many of the prominent men and women of his day.
Along with Pádraig Pearse and other nationalists he founded the
famed St. Lawrence O’Toole Pipe Band, and took up that most difficult of
instruments, the Uilleann pipes. In a fury over his constant rehearsing, Sean’s
brother eventually took an awl to his wailing pipes.
Outraged by the living conditions in Dublin slums O’Casey
became an avid trade unionist and socialist revolutionary. He came under the
influence of Jim Larkin’s towering personality and was one of the founders of
the Irish Citizen Army. However, he cared little for his comrade, James
Connolly, and they clashed over the Scottish socialist’s perceived tilt towards
Irish nationalism.
After disagreeing with Countess Markievicz on similar issues
he resigned as Secretary of the Citizen Army.
This would ultimately save his life, for it’s hard to imagine
that the British authorities would have shown clemency towards the fiery proletarian
revolutionary after the 1916 Uprising.
With time on his hands O’Casey began to write for the
theatre and after many rejections he scored three massive successes with Shadow
of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars. Each a perfect
blend of tragedy and comedy these searing plays laid bare the effects of
poverty, and religious and patriotic cant on the Irish soul.
But O’Casey was never totally accepted in any field - riots
broke out in the Abbey Theatre during The Plough and The Stars over his portrait
of a prostitute in “holy Catholic Ireland.”
After The Abbey rejected his anti-war drama, The Silver Tassie,
Sean moved to England. Though he is recognized as one of the world’s greatest
playwrights he never repeated the success of his dramatic Dublin trilogy.
And so he turned to memoir, and in six volumes with the
umbrella title, Mirror in My House, we get a detailed insight into eighty years
of Irish political, social, and theatrical history from an acid-tongued
observer.
Sure he settled a score here and there, and if he was harsh
on James Connolly at least we get to see the man rather than the legend.
And oh the heartbreak! Was there ever a more searing rejection
than his beloved ignoring the impoverished workman when out walking with her
well heeled friends?
Sean O’Casey not only changed the world of theatre, he took
the time to put the passion and pain of his eventful life into print for the
rest of us to marvel at.
He may have been peevish, harshly ideological, and easily
wounded, but the Dublin playwright/navvy summed himself up best. “I’ll go the last few steps of the way
rejoicing; I’ll go game, and I’ll die dancing.”
