A Subject of Deepest Dread: Seán O’Casey, The Easter Rising, and Tuberculosis

Abstract

Seán O’Casey’s play The Plough and the Stars presents audiences with a view of life in Dublin’s poverty-stricken tenements during the 1916 Easter Rising. Critical consensus holds that it is a play primarily concerned with the Easter Rising set against a backdrop of tenement life. This paper argues instead that this is a play about tuberculosis in Ireland set against the backdrop of the 1916 Easter Rising. The characters in the play place far more importance on tuberculosis and their impoverished state than on politics or even the violence erupting in the streets. The fears and concerns regarding this infectious disease and its impact on poor communities appear in contrast to the characters’ annoyance and dismissal of the political events leading up to and including the Rising.