Testimonies of the Dublin Tenements: Civilian Struggles During War in Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy

Abstract

Literature of the past glorifies war as the symbol of bravery and patriotism, but it often overlooks the struggles of civilians and the harsh realities of post-war life. During the height of World War I, Ireland was busy crafting guerrilla warfare against the British for their freedom. Though the nationalist struggle was essential, the cost of such resistance was borne most heavily by the working-class poor. Sean O’Casey was the dramatist of the age, whose work did not praise the heroic personages of the war or induce the patriotic fever among the people. Instead, it highlighted the poverty, starvation, poor health conditions, and police brutality during the war. The Dublin Trilogy (1923-26) set against the backdrop of the Easter Rising, the Irish War of Independence, and the Civil War, foregrounded the lives of people in the cramped Dublin tenements, struggling in war. This study aims to explore how O’Casey’s plays capture the emotional and material realities of civilians in a time of national upheaval. It analyzes the Dublin Trilogy through
Raymond William’s concept of structures of feeling, by close reading the texts. This research attempts to prove that Dublin Trilogy is the artefact that acts as a testimony of the tenement people and preserves the lived experiences of the ordinary often receded by that period’s prevailing ideologies of patriotic sacrifice.