"A second-generation playwright for Dublin’s acclaimed Abbey Theatre, Murray enjoyed international popularity from 1912 to about 1950. While well crafted and deeply in contact with rural Irish life, his plays were classical in structure and maintained a strong unity of theme: the need for social, religious, and individual freedom. . . . [DeGiacomo] reveals, for instance, that Murray, a reclusive Roman Catholic schoolteacher, felt like an outsider among Abbey directors W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, and Lennox Robinson, who were all Protestant. In between the biographical portions are four chapters that examine 17 plays. . . . The first book-length survey of Murray, this is recommended for specialists in theater or Irish literature studies."—Library Journal
Description
Drawing on the archives of libraries in Dublin, New York City, and Boston, Albert J. DeGiacomo assesses T. C. Murray’s contribution to the Irish dramatic movement. One of “the Cork realists” of the Abbey Theatre, Murray wrote seventeen plays in one, two, or three acts. A prominent National Teacher and a seemingly apolitical playwright in the Irish Literary Revival, Murray expressed nationalistic aspirations in his peasant tragedies. His characters’ drive for self-determination and their religious consciousness mark Murray’s dramatic landscape.
About the Author
Albert J. DeGiacomo is an assistant professor in the English and Theater Department at Berea College in Kentucky. His articles have appeared in Irish University Review and Éire-Ireland.
January 2003