Cottage kitchen, with nets, oilskins, spinning-wheel, some new boards standing by the wall, etc. CATHLEEN, a girl of about twenty, finishes kneading cake, and puts it down in the pot-oven by the fire; then wipes her hands, and begins to spin at the wheel.
NORA, a young girl, puts her head in at the door. NORA: in a low voice Where is she? NOBA: The young priest is after bringing them. It's a shirt and a plain stocking were got off a drowned man in Donegal. NORA: We're to find out if it's Michael's they are; some time herself will be down looking by the sea. How would he go the length of that way to the far north? NORA: The young priest says he's known the like of it. NORA: "I won't stop him," says he, "but let you not be afraid.
Herself does be saying prayers half through the night, and the Almighty God won't leave her destitute," says he, "with no son living. There's a great roaring in the west, and it's worse it'll be getting when the tide's turned to the wind. NORA: goes to the inner door and listens She's moving about on the bed.
She'll be coming in a minute. CATHLEEN: Give me the ladder, and I'll put them up in the turf-loft, the way she won't know of them at all, and maybe when the tide turns she'll be going down to see would he be floating from the east. He won't go this day, for the young priest will stop him surely. NORA: He went down to see would there be another boat sailing in the week, and I'm thinking it won't be long till he's here now, for the tide's turning at the green head, and the hooker's tacking from the east.
NORA: looking out He's coming now, and he in a hurry. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.
It will be wanting in this place, I'm telling you, if Michael is washed up to-morrow morning, or the next morning, or any morning in the week, for it's a deep grave we'll make him by the grace of God. This is the one boat going for two weeks or beyond it, and the fair will be a good fair for horses, I heard them saying below. MAURYA: It's a hard thing they'll be saying below if the body is washed up and there's no man in it to make the coffin, and I after giving a big price for the finest white boards you'd find in Connemara.
BARTLEY: How would it be washed up, and we after looking each day for nine days, and a strong wind blowing a while back from the west and south? MAURYA: If it wasn't found itself, that wind is raising the sea, and there was a star up against the moon, and it rising in the night.
If it was a hundred horses, or a thousand horses you had itself, what is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only? It's hard set we'll be from this day with no one in it but one man to work.
What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave? NORA: looking out She's passing the green head and letting fall her sails.
BARTLEY: getting his purse and tobacco I'll have half an hour to go down, and you'll see me coming again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if the wind is bad.
MAURYA: turning round to the fire, and putting her shawl over her head Isn't it a hard and cruel man won't hear a word from an old woman, and she holding him from the sea?
I'll ride down on the red mare, and the gray pony'll run behind me. The blessing of God on you. He's gone now, and when the black night is falling I'll have no son left me in the world. Isn't it sorrow enough is on everyone in this house without your sending him out with an unlucky word behind him, and a hard word in his ear? NORA: turning towards her You're taking away the turf from the cake. NORA: And it's destroyed he'll be going till dark night, and he after eating nothing since the sun went up.
Plot synopsis: Sarah Casey convinces the reluctant Michael Byrne to marry her by threatening to run off with another man. She accosts a local priest, and convinces him to wed them for ten shillings and a tin can. Michael's mother shows up drunk and harasses the priest, then steals the can to exchange it for more drink. The next morning Sarah and Michael go to the chapel to be wed, but when the priest finds that the can is missing he refuses to perform the ceremony. Sarah protests and a fight breaks out that ends with the priest tied up in a sack.
The tinkers free him after he swears not to set the police after them and he curses them in God's name as they flee in mock terror A one-act tragedy, the play is set in the Aran Islands, Inishmaan, 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 , J. Synge was encouraged by his friend and colleague William Butler Yeats to visit the Aran islands. He went on to spend the summers from to 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 the island of Donegal, which inspired Riders to the Sea. Riders to the Sea is written in the dialect of the Aran islands: Hyberno-English. Synge and first performed at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, on October 8, Crying out.
Turning the cake out of the oven. Cutting off some of the bread and rolling it in a cloth; to Maurya. Looking at her anxiously. Taking a stick Nora gives her. Getting the bundle from the loft. Trying to open the bundle. Giving her a knife. Cutting the string. They look at them eagerly.
In a low voice. Give me that and it will do. Who has taken up the stocking and counted the stitches, crying out. Counts the stitches. Swinging herself round, and throwing out her arms on the clothes. After an instant. I hear a little sound on the path. Helping Cathleen to close the bundle. Cathleen goes back to the spinning-wheel. Maurya comes in very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stool at the other side of the fire.
The cloth with the bread is still in her hand. The girls look at each other, and Nora points to the bundle of bread. After spinning for a moment. A little impatiently. Leaves her wheel and looks out. Starts, so that her shawl falls back from her head and shows her white tossed hair. With a frightened voice. Speaking very slowly. I went down to the spring well, and I stood there saying a prayer to myself.
Then Bartley came along, and he riding on the red mare with the gray pony behind him [ she puts up her hands, as if to hide something from her eyes. Speaking softly. A little defiantly. I looked up then, and I crying, at the gray pony, and there was Michael upon it—with fine clothes on him, and new shoes on his feet. Begins to keen. In a low voice, but clearly. There were Stephen, and Shawn, were lost in the great wind, and found after in the Bay of Gregory of the Golden Mouth, and carried up the two of them on the one plank, and in by that door.
In a whisper. Did you hear a noise in the north-east? Continues without hearing anything. There was Patch after was drowned out of a curagh that turned over. I was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word.
I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it—it was a dry day, Nora—and leaving a track to the door. It opens softly and old women begin to come in, crossing themselves on the threshold, and kneeling down in front of the stage with red petticoats over their heads.
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