MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
The long shadow of a masterpiece
JENNY FARRELL celebrates the continuing relevance of the first English-speaking playwright of proletarian origin to create world theatre
Daniel Breen, wanted for the Soloheadbeg Ambush, the incident that sparked the Irish War of Independence; Sean O’Casey, who dramatised the impact on working class people in The Shadow of a Gunman
[CeltBrowne/CC] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
SEAN O’CASEY’s play The Shadow of a Gunman premiered 100 years ago, on April 12 1923, at Dublin’s national Irish theatre, the Abbey Theatre.
The theatre, which grew out of the Irish Renaissance movement for the renewal of Irish literature in 1904, encouraged new Irish writers and provided a platform for the exploration of progressive ideas on stage.
The Shadow of a Gunman is the first of O’Casey’s three Dublin plays, which examine the maturity and fortunes of the people at three important moments in Irish history — the Easter Rising (1916), the war of independence (1918-21), and the civil war (1922-23) — all of which O’Casey experienced.
More from this author
On the centenary of the birth of the anti-colonial thinker and activist Frantz Fanon, JENNY FARRELL assesses his enduring influence
JENNY FARRELL relishes a modern parable that challenges readers to confront the legacies of empire, and the possibilities of resistance
As Caspar David Friedrich’s 250th anniversary is celebrated in Berlin and New York, JENNY FARRELL urges viewers of the German Romantic painter to understand its true historical context, and beware its co-option by the far-right
As Caspar David Friedrich’s 250th anniversary is celebrated in Berlin and New York, JENNY FARRELL urges viewers of the German Romantic painter to understand its true historical context, and beware his co-option by the far right
