Abstract
While the dominant theatre of the Irish Literary Revival relied on ahistorical mythologies to imagine a unified (and arguably Unionized) nation, the Irish Workers’ Dramatic Company was intent on a drama of disruption.1 Based at Liberty Hall, the headquarters of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, and concerned with the material welfare of the working classes, the amateur company presents an alternative to the preoccupations of the Abbey Theatre with its mystical depictions of an uncorrupted west, representations of an imaginary peasantry and its concern with nationality. Whereas the aim of Yeats and Gregory was to represent the nation in plays dealing with Irish legend or ‘Irish historic personages or events’, the Irish Workers’ Dramatic Company aimed to intervene in the present moment, to reimagine the place of the individual in history and in the process to effect material change.2
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© 2014 Lauren Arrington
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Arrington, L. (2014). Theatre of Dissent: the Historical Imagination of the Irish Workers’ Dramatic Company. In: Collins, C., Caulfield, M.P. (eds) Ireland, Memory and Performing the Historical Imagination. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137362186_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137362186_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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