RIDERS TO THE SEA

It must have been on Synge's second visit to the Aran Islands that he had the experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his greatest play. The scene of ‘‘Riders to the Sea’’ is laid in a cottage on Inishmaan, the middle and most interesting island of the Aran group. While Synge was on Inishmaan, the story came to him of a man whose body had been washed up on the far away coast of Donegal, and who, by reason of certain peculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the island. In due course, he was recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly the manner described in the play, and perhaps one of the most poignantly vivid passages in Synge's book on ‘‘The Aran Islands’’ relates the incident of his burial. Riders to the Sea is a marvel of simplification and elimination of the irrelevant and the literal. The characters are symbolic or representative figures; the speech and setting and intensely local; but the tragic pattern, the passion and philosophy of sorrow are universal experiences.

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