and my instructors; I wrote them for a small, barely-furnished stage
in a small theatre; I wrote them, too, for an audience that was
tremendously interested in every expression of national character.
"The Land" was written to celebrate the redemption of the soil of
Ireland--an event made possible by the Land Act of 1903. This event,
as it represented the passing of Irish acres from an alien
landlordism, was considered to be of national importance. "The Land"
also dealt with a movement that ran counter to the rooting of the
Celtic people in the soil--emigration--the emigration to America of
the young and the fit. In "The Land" I tried to show that it was not
altogether an economic necessity that was driving young men and
women out of the Irish rural districts; the lack of life and the
lack of freedom there had much to do with emigration.

"The Land" touched upon a typical conflict, the conflict between the
individual and that which, in Ireland, has much authority, the
family group. This particular conflict was shown again in "The
Fiddler's House." where the life, not of the actual peasants, but of
rural people with artistic and aristocratic traditions, was shown.

I tried to show the same conflict working out more tragically in the
play of middle-class life, "Thomas Muskerry." Here I went above the
peasant and the wandering artist and came to the official. I had
intended to make plays about the merchant, the landowner, the
political and the intellectual leader and so write a chapter in an
Irish Human Comedy. But while I was thinking of the play that is
third in this volume my connection with the National Theatre Society
was broken off. "Thomas Muskerry" was produced in the Abbey Theatre
after I had ceased to be a member of the group that had founded it.