Description

This grammar study tries to bridge the double fold separation - time and distance - lying between two of the most often quoted examples of drama reflecting the English spoken in Ireland. There is a seventeen-year lapse between their first performances, during which Ireland knew the most important events of its birth as a nation: the Easter Rising of 1916, the Irish Free State of 1921 and the Civil War of 1922-23. The Russian Revolution and the First World War also took place then. The other gap lies between their locations: Synge s The Playboy of the Western World is set in the remote west coast of Ireland, where Celtic echoes still linger today, whereas Juno and the Paycock develops in the slums of Dublin, the main inlet of English influence in Ireland and a recipient of rural immigrants. O Casey was born and raised in that poor urban atmosphere. It is a fascinating task to explore how much dialects have changed, what is still heard and what has been lost. The frame for this comparative study, eighty years later, is completed by the view of leading authorities on language in Ireland.