SHEMUS RUA, A Peasant
MARY, His Wife
TEIG, His Son
ALEEL, A Poet
THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN
OONA, Her Foster Mother
Two Demons disguised as Merchants
Peasants, Servants, Angelical Beings, Spirits


The Scene is laid in Ireland and in old times.


SCENE 1

THE COUNTESS CATHLEEN

SCENE--A room with lighted fire, and a door into the open air,
through which one sees, perhaps, the trees of a wood, and these
trees should be painted in flat colour upon a gold or diapered
sky. The walls are of one colour. The scene should have the
effect of missal Painting. MARY, a woman of forty years or so,
is grinding a quern.

MARY. What can have made the grey hen flutter so?

(TEIG, a boy of fourteen, is coming in with turf, which he lays
beside the hearth.)

TEIG. They say that now the land is famine struck