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Riders to the Sea
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Background
Authorial Context: John Millington Synge
Irish playwright and poet Edmund John Millington Synge (known usually as John Millington Synge) was an important figure in both the Irish Literary Revival and Irish literary history more broadly. His most well-known works include the plays The Playboy of the Western World (1907), Riders to the Sea (1904), and In the Shadow of the Glen (1903), his published journal The Aran Islands (1907), and his posthumously published Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910). Synge was one of the co-founders of the Abbey Theatre, a major establishment and contributor to the Irish Literary Revival, alongside W. B. Yeats ("Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Easter, 1916," "Death") and Lady Gregory.
Synge was born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family; he studied at Trinity College Dublin and spent time in Germany to study music in 1893. After his stint in Germany, however, he gave up his intended music career and began learning about poetry and literary criticism in Paris. Despite Synge’s upper-class, Protestant upbringing, most of his works focused on working-class, rural Catholics. Upon the urging of W. B. Yeats, Synge decided to live among the working class for a time; he lived on the Aran Islands, one of the parts of Ireland where the Irish language survived alongside the Hiberno-English (or Irish-influenced English) dialect. He learned Irish, developed an knack for re-creating the Hiberno-English dialect in his plays, and he detected the ancient pagan beliefs that survived underneath the Christianity imposed on the Irish. Synge additionally became known for his collection of folkloric stories as part of literary research and his use of these stories in his writing.
Synge died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1909 (he was only 37), but his legacy remained strong among the Irish literary community. He helped create the predominant style of the Abbey Theatre, a style that lasted into the 1940s, and the theatre’s acting school provided training based on Synge’s particular style of realism. The Aran Islands host a Synge Summer School every year, bringing together poets, playwrights, and more.
Geographical and Socio-Historical Context: The Aran Islands
The Aran Islands, on which Riders to the Sea is set, are three islands near Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, named Inishmore, Inishmaan, and Inisheer. Inishmaan, the second-largest, is the island belonging to the Riders to the Sea characters. Even today, the small population primarily speaks Irish rather than English; they are part of what is called the Gaeltacht, or a grouping of areas in Ireland that are recognized by the government as places where Irish is the predominant language in the home. The Gaeltacht, recognized in the 1920s after the creation of the Irish Free State, was part of the government’s attempt to restore the Irish language. Most inhabitants of these areas, however, also speak English, and Irish has long been in decline.
The islanders are thought to have found the islands when seeking safe haven. Life is difficult on the islands because they are primarily composed of limestone, without naturally occurring topsoil. Early inhabitants used seaweed and sand to supplement the soil. Islanders adapted to life in these conditions, and until near the end of the 20th century, the islands had an unusually high rate of people who were monolingual speakers of Irish, despite the predominancy of English in the rest of Ireland by that point in history.
With Riders to the Sea, Synge additionally addresses spirituality within the Aran Islands. The author returns a sense of dignity and respect to those steeped in the remains of Irish mysticism and reveals how much the old supernatural beliefs and the relatively newer Christian practices became intertwined in both daily life and the Irish imagination in certain parts of the country. Mysticism is strong enough in places like the Aran Islands to retain some of its prior importance even as the inhabitants cry out to the Christian God. More than that, Synge uses a respectful and solemn portrayal of the Aran Islands people to illustrate their natural dignity, despite a long history of comedic stereotypes of the Irish peasantry in theater.
Literary Context: The Irish Literary Revival and the Abbey Theatre
During the late 19th and 20th centuries, Irish literary and artistic talent blossomed, including in the areas of poetry, music, art, and literature. Also called the Irish Literary Renaissance or the Celtic Twilight, the Irish Literary Revival grew out of a growing interest in Ireland’s Gaelic history. It also had a political element, as it was often connected with Irish nationalism, or the desire to free Ireland from English rule and oppression. Synge, by founding the Abbey Theatre (which opened in December 1904) with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, played an important role in the revival, as the Abbey Theatre put together performances of plays that centered around things like Irish mythology and folklore, peasant life in Ireland, and other Irish-centric themes. Other major figures of the movement included Douglas Hyde, Padraic Colum, and George Russell (“AE”), and the Abbey Theatre put on plays by authors like Yeats, Synge, Lady Gregory, Padraic Colum, George Bernard Shaw, Oliver St John Gogarty, and more. The movement also grew alongside renewed interest in the Irish language (particularly espoused by the Gaelic League, which promoted the renewal of Irish social, cultural, and linguistic practices), Irish sports (promoted by the Gaelic Athletic Association), and nationalist politics (through the Home Rule movement, or the push for Ireland to rule itself rather than be ruled by England). The Irish Literary Revival often strove to bring back elements of traditional Irish culture, such as ancient Irish mythology and the Irish language; even so, many of those attempts were deemed (either at the time or by later scholars) to have relied on stereotypes and lack of a real understanding of the lives of poor Irish Catholics. In addition, the English and Anglo-Irish (Protestants) of the Victorian era tended to value propriety and modernity, looking down on elements of traditional Irish culture and on the mysticism that kept hold of many Irish Catholics. Once the southern portion of Ireland gained freedom and established itself, the Irish Free State provided an annual subsidy for the Abbey Theatre.
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