--- description: On St. Patrick's Day, LIFE recalls the Ireland of playwright Sean O'Casey that today endures almost solely in memory and in literature. title: St. Patrick's Day: Photos of Sean O'Casey's Vanished Ireland image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6a8eebcaa53904a/698781eacd1bba133c6f57ee/140312-ireland-1954-06.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Authors](/tag/authors/) ## Authors Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Eire Apparent: Recalling Sean O'Casey's Vanished Ireland by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 12, 2014 4:25 PM CUT  Caption from LIFE. Woman downstairs appears in many O'Casey plays. O'Casey's real-life woman downstairs was kindly Katie Kenna who stood by him in tragic days and is still at 18 Abercorn Road. Caption from LIFE. Woman downstairs appears in many O'Casey plays. O'Casey's real-life woman downstairs was kindly Katie Kenna who stood by him in tragic days and is still at 18 Abercorn Road.Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 12, 2014 4:25 PM CUT Few Irish writers ever held a grip on their native land’s imagination as powerful as Sean O’Casey’s (1880 – 1964). There was [Joyce](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%5Fjoyce "undefined"), of course, and Bernard Shaw and Yeats; Frank O’Connor and Flann O’Brien; Synge, Swift, and Oscar Wilde; and the long, long list of phenomenal post-war Irish novelists, poets and dramatists, from Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh to [Edna O’Brien](http://www.theguardian.com/books/video/2012/dec/07/edna-obrien-autobiography-country-girl-interview-video "undefined"), Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett (who of course penned his greatest works in French) and so many others. But as LIFE magazine wrote in a 1954 article: “Now that Bernard Shaw, an Irishman, and Eugene O’Neill, son of an Irishman, are dead, the greatest living playwright in the English language is another Irishman, Sean O’Casey.” --- > “” --- --- > “” --- --- > “” --- Six decades later — when much, but not quite all, of the world that O’Casey brought to life on stage and on the printed page has vanished with the years — LIFE.com recalls an Ireland that endures in fading memory, in literature, and in Gjon Mili’s wonderful pictures.  Caption from LIFE. Far from Dublin, O'Casey stands in his home in England. On the wall behind him is a portrait done by the famous British artist, Augustus John, 28 years ago when O'Casey, fresh from his early triumphs in Dublin, was a literary lion of London. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. On Abercorn Road the house where O'Casey lived still stands—No. 18, second house in street at right. The boys play hurley, similar to hockey, which O'Casey too played 60 years ago. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. O'Casey's flat looks from the rear toward St. Barnabas' church whose rectors were his friends. British gunfire from this steeple in 1916 came close to killing dramatist and his mother. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Ireland, 1954. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Honored grave is that of Charles Parnell whose fight for Irish freedom inspired O'Casey by its fervid patriotism. 'Where your dust lies,' he wrote, 'will be a . . . living place forever.' Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Woman downstairs appears in many O'Casey plays. O'Casey's real-life woman downstairs was kindly Katie Kenna who stood by him in tragic days and is still at 18 Abercorn Road. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Sean O'Casey, 1954. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Scene of play in actual life was room where O'Casey lived with Mullin. It is still much as it was 34 years ago. Mugs on the table are O'Casey's as are some of books. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. In the play 'Shadow of a Gunman,' Minnie Powell takes bomb bag from Donal Davoren (left) and Seumas Shields to hide them. Captured, she is killed when Irish ambush her captors. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Real life model for the philosophical peddler of the 'Gunman,' Seumas Shields, is Michael Mullin. It was Mullin who kindly offered O'Casey shelter right next to the bomb school. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE.In own role as Donal, O'Casey, who put much of himself into play, declaims in self-recrimination after Minnie is killed: 'Oh, Davoren . . . poet and poltroon, poltroon and poet.' Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Sean O'Casey's Ireland, 1954. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Sean O'Casey, 1954. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Dry land sailor Michael Moran, Liffey River dockworker, dresses seafaring style although he has never been to sea. This picture might be O'Casey's portrait of the paycock in 'Juno.' Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Two chattererers, snug in a pub, gossip cosily while lowering a pint. They are Mrs. Mary McNally and Mrs. Bridget McDonough, who seem right out of any one of O'Casey's plays. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. A barroom banterer, as embodied in Fluther of 'The Plough,' or Joxer of 'Juno,' is Dublin cabbie Michael Murphy who stands quaffing beer and telling of his adventures as a soldier. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Sean O'Casey's Dublin, 1954. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. The eternal mother, real heroine in many O'Casey plays, is personified by Esther Mulligan. She could be Juno, careworn but spirited, fighting to keep her children together. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. The young girl reaching out for a better life -- the Minnie Powell of 'Gunman' -- can be seen in Dublin girls like Moira Cranwell, a pretty typist in the Radio Eireann office. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Ragged poet who appears often in O'Casey's works lives in the bohemian figure of Brendan Behan who, as Sean did, came from the slums and writes plays, poems and ballads. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. At his typewriter which he bought at 10 shillings a week 30 years ago, O'Casey works over his new book. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Stairway to nowhere once led from dressing rooms to stage at the Abbey Theatre, now burned out. Actors Barry Fitzgerald and Sara Allgood descended them to play O'Casey's roles. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Pathway to nowhere, a tree-lined walk, once led to Lady Gregory's Coole Park estate, now leveled. Yeats, Shaw, Synge, O'Casey and the other Irish greats came here to visit. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. Under a sunhat, the playwright inspects plants in a garden at Totnes, Devon, which he recently gave up in favor of a flat in the town of Torquay. Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3730324/eire-apparent-recalling-sean-ocaseys-vanished-ireland/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3730324/eire-apparent-recalling-sean-ocaseys-vanished-ireland/"},"headline":"Eire Apparent: Recalling Sean O'Casey's Vanished Ireland","datePublished":"2014-03-12T16:25:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:16.311Z","description":"LIFE photographer Gjon Mili's pictures from the 1950s recall an Ireland that today endures largely in memory and in the country's astonishing literature.","url":"https://time.com/3730324/eire-apparent-recalling-sean-ocaseys-vanished-ireland/","keywords":["Authors","photography","Ireland","Gjon Mili","Great Places"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6a8eebcaa53904a/698781eacd1bba133c6f57ee/140312-ireland-1954-06.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ben Cosgrove","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6a8eebcaa53904a/698781eacd1bba133c6f57ee/140312-ireland-1954-06.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ireland 1954","caption":"Sean O'Casey's Dublin, 1954.","creditText":"Gjon Mili—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/authors/","name":"Authors"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3730324/eire-apparent-recalling-sean-ocaseys-vanished-ireland/","name":"Eire Apparent: Recalling Sean O'Casey's Vanished Ireland"}}]}] ```