Associate Director of Creative Writing Mary Morrissy will take part in a day-long conference – In Depth: The Dublin Plays of Sean O’Casey – at the National Theatre London on Saturday, September 24.

Prof James Moran of Nottingham University and Dr Nichoals Grene of Trinity College Dublin will join Mary to explore The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars. The conference will examine the circumstances of the original performances of the plays, how they related to O’Casey’s own life, and will place the plays in the context of Ireland’s revolutionary decade.

Mary’s novel, The Rising of Bella Casey, is a re-imagining of the life of Bella Casey, the playwright’s sister and dramatizes the writing of O’Casey’s six volumes of autobiography. Episodes and characters from the Dublin plays are woven into the narrative. The novel was nominated for the Dublin Impac Award in 2014.

(Poster image courtesy of the Irish Classical Theatre Company, Buffalo, New York)