Riders to the Sea

the play
Play written by John Millington Synge

Riders to the Sea is a play written by Irish Literary Renaissance playwright John Millington Synge. It was first performed on 25 February 1904 at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theater Society with Helen Laird playing Maurya. A one act tragedy, the play is set at Inishmaan in the Aran Islands, and like all of Synge's plays it is noted for capturing the poetic dialogue of rural Ireland. The plot is based not on the traditional conflict of human wills but on the hopeless struggle of a people against the impersonal but relentless cruelty of the sea.

In 1897, J. M. Synge was encouraged by his friend and colleague William Butler Yeats to visit the Aran Islands. He went on to spend the summers from 1898 to 1903 there. While on the Aran Island of Inishmaan, Synge heard the story of a man from Inishmaan whose body washed up on the shore of an island of County Donegal, which inspired Riders to the Sea. Riders to the Sea is written in the Hiberno English dialect of the Aran Islands. Synge's use of phrasing from the Irish language is part of the Irish Literary Revival, a period when Irish literature looked to encourage pride and nationalism in Ireland. Several scenes in the play are taken from stories Synge collected during his time in the Aran Islands and recorded in his book The Aran Islands. These include the identification of the drowned man by his clothing and the account of a man's ghost being seen riding a horse.

Maurya: Grief stricken widow and mother of eight children Cathleen, Nora, Bartley, Shawn, Sheamus, Stephen, Patch, and Michael. Cathleen: Maurya's elder daughter, tries to keep her mother from dying from grief by identifying her deceased brother Michael's clothing. Nora: Maurya's younger daughter, helps her sister with their mother. Bartley: Maurya's youngest and only living son, has died by the end of the play. Maurya's sons Shawn, Sheamus, Stephen, Patch, and Michael, as well as Maurya's husband are all deceased when the play begins. There is also a priest character who is never seen but is quoted by Cathleen and Nora in the beginning of the play. Eamon Simon, Stephen Pheety, and Colum Shawn are the neighbors and friends of Bartley.

The pervading theme of this work is the subtle paganism Synge observed in the people of rural Ireland. Following his dismissal of Christianity, Synge found that the predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland still retained many of the folktales and superstitions born out of the old Celtic paganism. This play is an examination of that idea as he has a set of deeply religious characters who find themselves at odds with an unbeatable force of nature (this being the sea). While the family is clearly Catholic, they still find themselves wary of the supernatural characteristics of natural elements, an idea very present in Celtic paganism.

Another main theme of the play is the tension between the traditional and modern worlds in Ireland at the time. While Maurya, representative of the older Irish generation, is immovably tied to the traditional world and inward looking, Nora, representative of the younger generation is willing to change with the outside world and therefore outward looking. Cathleen, the eldest daughter struggles to bridge these two worlds and hold both in balance.

The characters of the play are at all times in contact with and accepting of the reality of death, the sea and drowning especially being a constant threat. They are caught between the dual realities of the sea as a source of livelihood and a fatal threat. The objects and culture of death in the form of coffins, keening, and mourning are prevalent in the play and are closely based on Synge's observations of the culture of the Aran Island. Other translations include: À cheval vers la mer (Riders to the Sea, 1903; 1904) translated by Maurice Bourgeois, Cavaliers à la mer, translated by Fouad El Etr, and Cavaliers vers la mer (combined with L’Ombre de la vallée), translated by Françoise Morvan.