J. M. Synge

Although he came form a middle-class Protestant background, Synge’s writings are mainly concerned with the world of the Roman Catholic peasants of rural Ireland and with what he saw as the essential paganism of their world view.

The Playboy of the Western World (1907)– an unflattering portrayal of the working class Irish. It is set in a cottage in County Mayo (on the North-West coast of Ireland) during the early 1900s. It tells the story of Christy Mahon, a young man supposedly running away having killed his father. Christy arrives at the cottage, and the locals are more interested in vicariously enjoying his story than in condemning his morality.

The Shadow of the Glen (1905)