| Front | Cathleen Ni Houlihan |
|---|---|
| Back | a play W. B. Yeats 1902 with Maud Gonne in the title role it concerns the sacrifice of the private hopes and dreams of Michael Gillane, who leaves his bride to fight for Ireland at the request of the old woman a patriotic and popular play , revived many times and translated into Irish, it inspired the leaders of the 1916 easter rising and so raised in Yeats 's mind the question posed in 'the man and the echo'; did that play of mine send out/certain men the English shot? Cathleen ni Houlihan is a one-act play written by William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1902. It was first performed on 2 April of that year and first published in the October number of Samhain. The play centres on the 1798 Rebellion. The play is startlingly nationalistic, in its last pages encouraging young men to sacrifice their lives for the heroine Cathleen ni Houlihan, who represents an independent and separate Irish state. The title character first appears as an old woman at the door of a family celebrating their son's wedding. She describes her four "beautiful green fields," representing the four provinces, that have been unjustly taken from her. With little subtlety, she requests a blood sacrifice, declaring that "many a child will be born and there will be no father at the christening". When the youth agrees and leaves the safety of his home to fight for her, she appears as an image of youth with "the walk of a queen," professing of those who fight for her: "They shall be remembered forever, They shall be alive forever, They shall be speaking forever, The people shall hear them forever." |
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