‘Juno and the Paycock’

Abstract

This was the huge success O’Casey promised Fallon after the relative failure of his two one-acters. Its background is the lowest point of modern Irish history, the civil war that followed independence. Michael Collins and ‘the Free Staters’ signed a treaty with Lloyd George accepting independence for the major part of Ireland; but leaving the six counties in the North attached to Britain. The Die-hards, as O’Casey calls them, under De Valera, refused to accept this compromise and civil war ensued, old comrades of the fight for freedom killing each other with peculiar ferocity. In this context the traditional plot of a promised legacy that does not materialise achieves new resonance.