The complete online text of Synge and the Ireland of His Time by William Butler Yeats.

William Butler Yeats, probably the twentieth century's greatest poet in English and certainly one of its most complex men, was born in the Dublin suburb of Sandymount on 13 June 1865. He was the eldest of the four surviving children, all brilliant, of a...

William Butler Yeats , probably the twentieth century's greatest poet in English and certainly one of its most complex men, was born in the Dublin suburb of Sandymount on 13 June 1865. He was the eldest of the four surviving children, all brilliant, of a...

Although the reputation of William Butler Yeats rests primarily on his poetry, the drama remained one of the central concerns throughout his long career. As he explained in 1917, "I need a theatre; I believe myself to be a dramatist; I desire to show eve...

Have you ever wondered why the Irish theatre is littered with dead babies? You know, those children who die offstage somewhere in a distant corner of Ireland--unbaptized infants who are never seen or heard, but who leave their poor mothers grieving for the...

COLM TOIBIN, EDITOR Synge: A Celebration Carysfort; Dufour Editions, 2005, $29.95 THIS IS A VERY ATTRACTIVE and firmly bound paperback book, friendly to the hand and eye, with a striking cover photograph of a scene on Aran, taken by Synge himself. There...