Most stereotypes of Ireland have more to do with idyllic rural scenes than busy city life. But, as Beth Mannion points out in her book, The Urban Plays of the Early Abbey Theatre: Beyond O’Casey, there’s an entire sub-genre of plays depicting life in major cities like Dublin in the early 20th century. The most famous of these are the plays in Sean O’Casey’s trilogy (The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars), but O’Casey was just one small part of a much wider and richer body of work by Irish playwrights who reflected what it was like to live in urban Ireland.
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