Abstract: 
Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars is a defining play of the late Irish Cultural Revival era, engaging with nationalism, identity, class, and post-war revisionism of revolution and conflict. First performed at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre in 1926, a decade after the 1916 Easter Rising, it was perceived as a play of historical reflection, yet provoked riots and criticism for its portrayal of the Rising and its protagonists, exposing tensions surrounding historical memory. Drawing on digitised materials from the Abbey Theatre Digital Archive held at the University of Galway, this talk examines original production records from the play alongside digital recordings and images of contemporary productions, to draw new perspectives on the spaces of conflict and contemporary contested memory, specifically of the 1916 Rising, as depicted on the Irish stage. Furthermore, it explores how the legacies and impacts of O’Casey’s treatise on the Rising were reflected during ‘the Decade of Centenaries’, at the Abbey Theatre and elsewhere in Dublin, during the centenary commemorations a century later.

Guest speaker:  Dr. Barry Houlihan
University of Galway, Ireland
Dr. Barry Houlihan is an Archivist at the University of Galway. He is the editor and author of a number of books on Irish literary and theatre archives, including the most recent co-edited volumes: The John McGahern Companion (Peter Lang Press, 2026); Druid Theatre 1975-2025: 50 Years of New Irish Plays (Methuen, 2025) and the monograph Theatre and Archival Memory: Irish Drama and Marginalised Histories 1951-1977 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021). His archival and curation work includes the Druid Theatre archive, the Galway International Arts Festival Oral History archive, the John McGahern archive, and collections relating to conflict and peace in Northern Ireland. Dr. Houlihan is the editor of the Irish Archives journal and is a regular contributor to RTÉ Brainstorm and Irish media on topics of Irish heritage and culture.

Date: November 19, 2026
Time: 11.45- 13.15
Room: Z.1.09
Contact: Dr. Nursen Gömceli (nursen.goemceli@aau.at)
Department of English in cooperation with the Klagenfurt Centre of Irish Studies
Der Beitrag Guest lecture Series in Irish Studies: “Speak proud things”: Sean O’Casey and The Plough and the Stars from Revival to Commemoration by Dr. Barry Houlihan erschien zuerst auf University of Klagenfurt.