A Sort of Saint: The Well of the Saints

Collins, Christopher

doi:10.1057/978-1-349-94872-7_6

Christopher Collins²

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Abstract

This chapter reconsiders the character of the Catholic Saint in The Well of the Saints. Analysis in this chapter suggests that the Saint in this play is a Protestant tramp with pre-Christian beliefs that has the unique ability of harnessing miraculous powers from pre-Christian groundwater. The chapter concludes by foregrounding the pertinence of Synge’s decision to dramatize the Saint as a Protestant because it marks his first solipsistic retreat to his Ascendancy class as he began to withdraw under the increasing attacks on his plays made by the Catholic bourgeoisie.

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Notes

1.
TCD MS: 4405, f.4v.
2.
TCD MS: 4405, f.10v.
3.
NYPL MS: Berg Collection. Lady Gregory to John Butler Yeats, 9 January 1906.
4.
CW, vol. 3: 149.
5.
TCD MS: 4417, f.18v. Synge writes this on 25 April 1896.
6.
TCD SSMS: 6189, f.3.
7.
David Dickson, Dublin: The Making of a Capital City, (London: Profile Books, 2015), 401.
8.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Ireland and The Irish Question, ed. R. Dixon (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1971), 85.
9.
George Moore, Hail and Farewell: Vale, 170.
10.
Moore, Hail and Farewell: Vale, 170.
11.
Moore, Hail and Farewell: Vale, 114.
12.
TCD SSMS: 6189, f.192.
13.
Cherie Houghton ‘John Synge as I knew Him,’ Irish Statesman, 5 July 1924, 532.
14.
Houghton ‘John Synge as I knew Him,’ 532.
15.
Houghton. ‘John Synge as I knew Him,’ 532.
16.
Synge claimed that when he ‘was about fourteen [he] obtained a book of Darwin’s’ (CW, vol. 2: 10). This is a retrospective analysis. Synge’s diary for 30 September 1895, reads ‘Began the Origin of Species’ (TCD MS: 4416, f.129v).
17.
CW, vol. 2: 11.
18.
CW, vol. 2: 11.
19.
CW, vol. 2: 11, 56.
20.
W.J. McCormack, Fool of the Family (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000), 383.
21.
CL, vol. 1: 178. J.M. Synge to Lady Gregory, 31 September 1904.
22.
CW, vol. 3: 215.
23.
CW, vol. 3: 216.
24.
W.B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (London: Macmillan, 1961), 319.
25.
Yeats, Essays and Introductions, 319–20.
26.
TCD MS: 4383, f.11v.
27.
NYPL MS: Foster-Murphy Collection.
28.
Nicholas Grene, Synge: A Critical Study of the Plays (London: Macmillan, 1975), 4.
29.
CW, vol. 2: 386.
30.
CW, vol. 2: 386.
31.
CW, vol. 2: 386.
32.
TCD MS: 4393, f.4r.
33.
CW, vol. 2: 231n.
34.
Synge canvassed against Home Rule on 28 February 1893. See, Samuel Synge, Letters to My Daughter: Memoires of John Millington Synge (Dublin: Talbot, 1933), 193. Samuel Synge to Edith Synge, 9 February 1926.
35.
CW, vol. 2: 399.
36.
CW, vol. 2: 113.
37.
CW, vol. 2: 142.
38.
CW, vol. 2: 258.
39.
CW, vol. 2: 134.
40.
CW, vol. 2: 122.
41.
CW, vol. 2: 122.
42.
CW, vol. 2: 122.
43.
CW, vol. 2: 128.
44.
CW, vol. 2: 121.
45.
W.B. Yeats, The Variorum Edition of the Poems, eds. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), 603.
46.
CW, vol. 2: 66.
47.
CW, vol. 2: 103n.
48.
Yeats, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats, 611.
49.
W.B. Yeats, Autobiographies (London: Macmillan, 1955), 400.
50.
Yeats, Autobiographies, 559.
51.
Yeats, Essays and Introductions, 515.
52.
Joseph Holloway, NLI MS: 1802, 17 June 1904, f.308.
53.
G.T. Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church: A History of Ireland from St. Patrick to the English Conquest in 1172 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1886), 27. While there is no manuscript evidence to suggest that Synge read this work, it is very likely that Synge had read Stokes’ work because his undergraduate studies at Trinity College required a strong foundation in ecclesiastical history. In his notebook Synge made notes that could have easily been taken from Stokes’ work such as: ‘[t]wo works of Patrick are extant; his Confessions and his Epistle’ (TCD MS: 4373, f.12v) and ‘[t]he Romans put down the Druids; but legalized tribal organization. Each tribe was ruled by its chief but there was a king at Meath over them who held a convention every 5 or 7 years at Tara the last assembly of its tribe was in 563 ad.’ (TCD MS: 4373, f.13v). Certainly, we know that Synge read Stokes’ Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church: A History of Ireland and Irish Christianity from the Anglo-Norman Conquest to the Dawn of the Reformation (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897) in July 1892; Synge began reading the text on 13 July and finished it seventeen days later (TCD MS: 4413, f.61v and f.69r).
54.
Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, 27.
55.
Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, 31.
56.
Stokes, Ireland and the Celtic Church, 32.
57.
William M. Murphy, Prodigal Father: The Life of John Butler Yeats, 1839–1922 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), 317. Also see, ‘The Freedom of the Play,’ Irish Times, 5 February 1907, 8.
58.
NYPL MS: Foster-Murphy Collection.
59.
Patrick Kenny, The Sorrows of Ireland (Dublin: Maunsel, 1907), 93.
60.
Kenny, The Sorrows of Ireland, 101.
61.
Ryan, The Pope’s Green Island, 40–41.
62.
Ryan, The Pope’s Green Island, 226.
63.
Ryan, The Pope’s Green Island, 226.
64.
CW, vol. 2: 56.
65.
CW, vol. 2: 57.
66.
See, L. Petit de Julleville, Histoire du Theâtre en France: La Comédie et les Mœurs en France au Moyen Age (Paris: Librairie Léopold Cerf, 1886), 100–103.
67.
Synge first began studying with de Julleville on Monday 29 April 1895. His diary simply states: ‘cours de Julleville’ (TCD MS: 4416, f.54v).
68.
Synge’s diary for 3 October 1903 records thus: ‘Petit de Julleville[,] Theatre en France [sic]’ (TCD MS: 4422, f.21v). For Synge’s detailed notes on Andrieu de la Vigne’s Moralité de l’aveugle et du boiteux, see, TCD MS: 4393, 36r–34r.
69.
CW, vol. 3: 265.
70.
J.N. Hillgarth, Christianity and Paganism, 350 – 750: The Conversion of Western Europe (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1986), 118.
71.
CW, vol. 3: 69.
72.
CW, vol. 3: 69.
73.
Synge, Collected Works, Vol. 3: 262. Synge’s letter to Max Meyerfeld points out that the space and place of the play is ‘Bállinatone, Grianan’. See, NLI MS: 778, f.6v, J.M. Synge to Max Meyerfeld, 12 August 1905.
74.
CW, vol. 2: 57.
75.
CW, vol. 2: 79.
76.
CW, vol. 2: 75.
77.
CW, vol. 2: 203.
78.
CW, vol. 2: 79.
79.
Michael P. Carroll, Irish Pilgrimage: Holy Wells and Popular Catholic Devotion (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1999), 48.
80.
Patrick Logan, The Holy Wells of Ireland (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1980), 16.
81.
John C. Messenger, Inis Beag: Isle of Ireland (New York: Holt Reinehart and Winston, 1969), 97.
82.
CW, vol. 3: 85.
83.
CW, vol. 3: 83.
84.
CW, vol. 3: 81.
85.
CW, vol. 3: 80.
86.
CW, vol. 4: 107.
87.
CW, vol. 4: 99.
88.
CW, vol. 3: 83.
89.
CW, vol. 4: 107.
90.
CW, vol. 3: 83.
91.
CW, vol. 3: 75.
92.
CW, vol. 3: 74.
93.
Seán Ó Súilleabháin, Irish Folk Custom and Belief (Dublin: Three Candles, 1967), 27-28.
94.
For example see, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 39. In this passage Frazer discuses a German folktale that draws upon iron as a talisman to ward off the tooth-fairy: ‘in Germany it is said to be an almost universal maxim among the people that when you have had a tooth taken out you should insert it in a mouse’s hole. To do so with a child’s milk-tooth which has fallen out will prevent the child from having toothache. Or you should go behind the stove and throw your tooth backwards over your head, saying, “Mouse, give me your iron tooth; I will give you my bone tooth.” And after that your other teeth will remain good.’
95.
TCD MS: 4378, f.57r.
96.
CW, vol. 3: xxi.
97.
St. Patrick’s Breastplate, adapted by Katherine M. Buck (London: Alfred H. Mayhew, 1926), 6.
98.
CW, vol. 3: 91.
99.
CW, vol. 3: 75.
100.
CW, vol. 3: 133.
101.
NLI MS: 778, f.6V. J.M. Synge to Max Meyerfeld, 12 August 1905.
102.
CW, vol. 3: 151.
103.
CW, vol. 3: 80.
104.
CW, vol. 3: 75.
105.
Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland: With Sketches of the Irish Past, vol. 2 (London: Ward and Downey, 1887), 161.
106.
Dorothy Ann Bray, A List of Motifs in the Lives of the Early Irish Saints (Helsinki: Scientiarum Fennica, 1992), 11, 10. Emphasis added.
107.
Bray, A List of Motifs, 15.
108.
CW, vol. 2: 203.
109.
CW, vol. 3: 91.
110.
Bray, A List of Motifs, 15.
111.
Frazer, The Golden Bough, 29.
112.
W.G. Wood Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths, a Folklore Sketch: A Handbook of Irish Pre-Christian Traditions, vol. 2 (New York: Kennikat, 1970), 49.
113.
Wood Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths, 49.
114.
Michael P. Carroll, ‘Rethinking Popular Catholicism in Pre-Famine Ireland,’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34, no. 3 (1995): 355. Emphasis in original.
115.
CW, vol. 3: 101.
116.
Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, The Hero in Irish Folk History (Dublin: Macmillan, 1985), 48.
117.
CW, vol. 3: 149. Emphasis added.
118.
Ó hÓgáin, The Hero in Irish Folk History, 46.
119.
CW, vol. 3: 85.
120.
CW, vol. 3: 101.
121.
CW, vol. 2: 34.
122.
CW, vol. 2: 398.
123.
CW, vol. 2: 398.
124.
TCD MS: 4405, f.10v.
125.
TCD MS: 4405, f.10v.
126.
CW, vol. 3: 117.
127.
TCD MS: 4405, f.10v.
128.
NLI MS: 13,617, ff.7r–7v. J.M. Synge to W.G. Fay, February 1905. Synge does not stipulate the date on which he wrote the letter, apart from ‘Thursday night’. Certainly, during this month Synge was in Dublin. CL, vol. 1: xxiv. Emphasis in original.
129.
CW, vol. 2: 239.
130.
CW, vol. 3: xxii.
131.
CW, vol. 3: xxiv.
132.
CW, vol. 3: xxiv.
133.
CW, vol. 3: xxiv.
134.
Joseph Holloway, NLI MS: 1803, 11 January 1905, f.23.
135.
Holloway, NLI MS: 1803, 11 January 1905, f.23.
136.
Holloway, NLI MS: 1803, 11 January 1905, f.23.
137.
W.G. Fay and Catherine Carswell, The Fays of the Abbey Theatre: An Autobiographical Record (London: Rich and Cowan, 1935), 168.
138.
See, TCD MS: 4417, f.11r. Synge writes this on 3 March 1896.
139.
See, TCD MS: 4417, f.18v. Synge writes this on 25 April 1896.
140.
CL, vol. 1: 94. Emphasis in original. J.M. Synge to Lady Gregory, 31 September 1904.
141.
CW, vol. 3: 80.
142.
David W. Miller, ‘Mass Attendance in 1834,’ in Piety and Power in Ireland, 1760–1960: Essays in Honour of Emmet Larkin, ed. Stewart J. Brown and David W. Miller (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 177.
143.
For more on this see, R.F. Foster, Paddy & Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History (London: Penguin, 1995), 212–32.
144.
Matthew Arnold, On the Study of Celtic Literature (London: Kennikat, 1970), 104.
145.
‘Irish National Theatre,’ Freeman’s Journal, 6 February 1905, 5.
146.
‘Irish National Theatre,’ 5.
147.
‘Irish National Theatre,’ 5.
148.
F.M’C, ‘Irish National Theatre,’ Dublin Evening Herald, 6 February 1905, 3.
149.
Holloway, NLI MS: 1803, 11 January 1905, f.22. Emphasis added.
150.
TCD MS: 4393, f.5r.
151.
James Joyce, Ulysees (London: Penguin, 2000), 256.
152.
Mrs. K. Synge, quoted in J.M. Synge: 1871–1909, ed. David H. Greene and Edward M. Stephens (New York: Macmillan, 1959), 180.
153.
NYPL MS: Berg Collection. Lady Gregory to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, 26 February 1905.
154.
CL, vol. 1: 286. J.M. Synge to the Editor of Irish Times, 30 January 1907.
155.
NYPL MS: Berg Collection. Lady Gregory to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, 15 April 1905.
156.
Fay and Carswell, The Fays of the Abbey Theatre, 211–12.
157.
W.P. Ryan, The Pope’s Green Island (London: James Nisbet, 1912), 306.
158.
Patrick Kenny, Economics for Irishmen (Dublin Maunsel, 1907), 156.
159.
NYPL MS: 2513. John Quinn to T.P. Gill, 21 August 1907.
160.
‘The Playboy of the West,’ Irish Times, 2 February 1907, 13.

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School of English, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Christopher Collins

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Collins, C. (2016). A Sort of Saint: The Well of the Saints . In: Theatre and Residual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94872-7_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94872-7_6
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