“Mollycewels an’ atoms! D’ye think I’m goin’ to listen to you thryin’ to juggle Fluther’s mind with complicated cunundhrums of mollycewels an’ atoms?”

Is there just something naturally poetic about the speech, and the lives, of the people of Dublin? To my untrained American ears, it seems that there is indeed. I know I’m not the first to ponder the inordinate number of amazing writers who passed through Dublin’s “streets broad and narrow”: Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Lever, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, Christy Brown, Maeve Binchy. Oh, and a clever lad named James Joyce. They were born with extraordinary talent, no question, but the alleys and shops of their youth may have added that extra flavor and color to their work.

One of the great poets of Dublin was playwright Sean O’Casey. I chose to read a three-play collection, comprised of Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars. In this trio of powerful plays, O’Casey managed to create characters who waxed poetic in both mundane and life-changing situations and yet retained their earthiness and authenticity. A well-honed gift of gab is almost universal among his casts of characters, but seems entirely appropriate and natural in them.

There are certain allusions and issues in O’Casey’s plays that I might have better understood if I knew more about the politics of Ireland in the 1920’s, the turbulent era depicted. But the power and poetic sensibility of his characters as they face violence, deprivation and loss are absolutely clear and universal. O’Casey told stories that needed to be told during those tragic years, and the spirit of Dublin that flowed through his veins enriched the pages of his plays for the generations of drama-lovers that came after.

But—who is Charles Lever, you ask? I’ll have more to say about that prolific Dubliner in an upcoming blog.