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This essay explores the extent to which some of the political upheavals of twentieth-century Ireland, and their related theatrical manifestations, might reveal a series of affinities with the organized political radicalism of nineteenth-century England. Specifically, the playhouse of dramas written by the executed leader of the Easter Rising of 1916, Pádraic Pearse (also known as Pádraig or Patrick) point back to the earlier Liberal reform meetings that took place in the English midlands. The key connecting figure is the revolutionary leader’s father, James Pearse, who spent his life netween Birmingham and Dublin, but who has tended to be overlooked by historians in the years since 1916. This paper will explore the way that throughout the twentieth-century a focus on Pádraic Pearse’s mother has tended to obscure the influence of James Pearse. Yet I suggest that James–influenced by Liberal thinkers such as the MP John Bright–helpedto link on kind of waning English radicalism with the developing nationalism of twentieth-century Ireland. It is in this context that my paper explores the political implications of Patrick Pearse’s theatrical writings, The Kings, The Master and The Singer, tracing connections between these plays and the Birmingham radicalism of James Pearse, with a particular focus on James’s nonconformist reformism and day-to-day involvement with the Catholic pomp of the Hardman church-furnishing company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Martin Lynch has been prominent in the practice of community theatre in Northern Ireland through works like The Stone Chair and The Wedding Community Play and his role as founding Chair of Belfast's Community Arts Forum. This essay argues, however, that in his work as a playwright engaged in staging the remembered histories of Belfast's working class, it is possible to regard him as a radical playwright. Locating Lynch in the tradition of John McGrath's popular theatre allows his work to be seen as both recovering working class experience and, crucially, probing mythologies that have justified and perpetuated political violence. The paper is focused particularly on two of Lynch's most recent works: Holding Hands at Paschendale (2006) and The Long Kesh Chronicles (2009). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]