SOURCE: "An Irish Proletarian," in The New Statesman & Nation, Vol. XXXVII, No. 937, February 19, 1949, pp. 184-85.

MacNeice was an Irish-born English poet, playwright, critic and educator. In the following review of Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well, he faults O'Casey's writing as overly polemical and intemperate, yet concludes that its vitality and verbal invention redeem these shortcomings.

The fourth and last volume in Mr. O'Casey's record of his Irish experiences [Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well], which this time include the Troubles and the Abbey Theatre, again throws much light both on Ireland and on O'Casey. There are many very good things in it and some pretty bad ones, but even the latter are illuminating; this man who brought something new and virile into the modern theatre remains for better or worse a creator. He may be unjust, but he is sincere; he may be naive, but he is alive; he may sow...