Microsoft Word - Brendan T. Cochran_THE “The Man That I Praise”: Generational Transformation of the Postcolonial Masculine Ideal in Cathleen ni Houlihan, At the Hawk’s Well, and On Baile’s Strand Brendan T. Cochran Theatre At the turn of the Twentieth Century, Ireland stood poised for a dramatic upheaval of its power structure. The British parliament had rejected previous moves for home rule in Ireland and a pervasive sense of hopelessness had begun to dominate the Irish political sphere. At the same time, an artistic and literary revival was taking root in the country that was intent on promoting Irish culture as the equal of any in Europe. These two phenomena were inextricably linked, as the movement for cultural legitimacy became tied to a larger movement to establish Ireland's racial equality and its right to self-governance. These wider cultural developments track closely with Franz Fanon’s roadmap to decolonization, outlined in his essay The Wretched of the Earth. By comparing Fanon’s steps toward creating a postcolonial society, in relation to Ireland’s independence movement, it is apparent that this process was one that required cultural transformation. As the Irish people began to see that the small appeasements of the British government would never result in a fully decolonized autonomy, the inevitability of violence became clear. As Fanon states, the “argument the native chooses has been furnished by the settler, and by an ironic turning of the tables it is the native who now affirms that the colonialist understands nothing but force.”1 This process culminated in the Easter Rising of 1916 and Irish War of Independence beginning in 1919. However, the cultural transformation necessary to foment this violent resistance had begun much earlier. In exploring the early life of the Abbey Theatre, the plays of William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory were both reflective of and instrumental to the construction of an Irish culture that was capable of armed revolution. It is clear through a deep reading of three plays Cathleen ni Houlihan, At the Hawk’s Well, and On Baile’s Strand that part of this transformation was a reimagining of idealized masculinity in the society. As Judith Butler states, “gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo. In its very character as performative resides the possibility of contesting its reified status.”2 These plays sought to facilitate a shift in the norms which defined masculine performance in Ireland. While all of these plays center around nationalistic themes, they also exhibit a distinct generational shift in ideals toward a more militant and unyielding, yet self-contained expression of the masculine. This deliberate shifting of gender expectations in the three plays, and in Ireland at the time of their conception, relates closely to the transition marked by Fanon from political placation to armed insurrection.3 Using Fanon’s postcolonial theory in concert with Butler’s theory of gender performativity, I will detail how these early works of the Abbey Theatre sought to reshape Irish society’s ideal of masculinity, through representations of a generational shift, in order to advance its nationalist agenda. The specificity of showing this transformation as a generational phenomenon was a reaction to anxieties about the recent failures of the nationalist agenda, particularly the downfall of Charles Stewart Parnell, and to encourage a more focused, militant path for the movement. While this process functioned as a rejection of British rule in Ireland, it also led to a reformation of Irish masculine performativity that modeled itself on the patriarchal standards of the British, the Catholic Church, and the wider nationalist cultural movement occurring in Europe. This case study therefore stands as a clear example of how the process of decolonization and its transformative cultural effects run the risk of recycling the colonizer’s violence, particularly through the perpetuation of patriarchal gender expectations. And while this process is necessarily turned against the colonizer, it is also frequently incorporated back toward its own newly independent society. The Makings of a Man The performance of gender is never a static or fixed matter. Butler explains that “the gendered body acts its part in a culturally restricted corporeal space and enacts interpretations within the confines of already existing directives.”4 It is a performance constantly in negotiation between the expectations of the society and the individuals performing it within that society. It is therefore subject to change based respectively on changes in the mores and ideals of the society and the willingness of individuals to push against these norms. In a colonial context, however, the societal expectations at work come not only from the native population, but also from the colonizer. The popular British ideas around Irish masculinity at the turn of the twentieth century were typical of the relationship between colonizers and native peoples. The Irish were consistently portrayed as both inherently feminized and dangerously primitive. While these ideas had existed previously, the prevailing 19th century theories of race lent them further weight. These theories cast Celtic lineages in a more feminine, and thereby the patriarchal lesser, form of whiteness than the masculine Anglo-Saxon lineage. These theories were seen as a clear justification for British paternalism; as Joseph Valente explains “by inscribing the presumed inferiority of the Irish in biological terms, this shift of register lent their political subordination an air of inner necessity, historical inevitability, and, above all, permanence.”5 This presented the independence movement with the particular challenge of asserting itself in both patriarchal and racial terms as the equals of other European nations. Georg Grote points to the Irish Literary Revival as a direct reaction to this impulse that sought to redefine the Irish Celt in terms of its ennobling mythology and history.6 In seeking to legitimize Irish culture as equal, however, it was still beholden to defining itself in the terms of other European cultures. Its right to self-rule was therefore inextricably linked to its ability to exert paternalistic control over its own people, as well as establishing its culture as a worthy equal to European nations. In conceiving of an ideal masculine image to aspire towards, a number of influences were simultaneously expressing themselves to Irish nationalists. One of the most present examples was that of the British themselves. It is a consistent feature of colonized peoples, according to Fanon, that they aspire to achieve that which they see as empowering their colonizer.7 The Victorian ideal of masculinity was the model of colonial control. It was an image of manhood which emphasized the balance of primal virility and aggression with the tempering influences of Christian morality and gentile behavior.8 With the close interplay of Irish and British culture, particularly for Anglo-Irish Protestants in the middle class, this example was a constant and lionized presence. Many affluent and even aristocratic members of the Anglo-Irish population played key roles in the Irish Literary Revival.9 This influence had seeped into the consciousness of the wider Irish population as well though. Valente finds a clear example of this impulse, pointing out that “no sooner did the metropolitan ethnologies of the Celt take hold in the 1840s than the nationalist vanguard of the time, Young Ireland, began to exhort its adherents to a collective enactment of British-style manliness.”10 This hegemonic impulse towards impersonating the British Victorian ideal of masculinity indicates the desire to assume British power. These dual attributes of rugged striving and self-possession were also being emphasized in other aspects of wider European society. The trend across the continent toward a more populist, nationalistic form of self-determination went hand in hand with this celebration of the temperate powerhouse male.11 It was an image of masculinity designed to show that the individuals of a population were capable of the force and control that they believed governance required. The movement looked to reclaim these qualities for the general population as they sought greater autonomy from the ruling aristocracies. These ideas were part and parcel with the Irish nationalist movement which shared these goals. Another major influence in this shifting ideal was that of the Catholic Church. At the start of the twentieth century, approximately 90% of the Irish population identified as Catholic and the Church hierarchy exerted considerable cultural weight. This influence sought to direct the Irish populace toward a more conservative path and, as Anthony Keating states, “Ireland’s population was believed, by religio-nationalist ideologues, to have been partially corrupted by centuries of imperial domination and the temptations of modernity.”12 The Catholic establishment saw the movement for Irish independence as an opportunity to establish the island as a bastion of morality, particularly with regards to sex and marriage. Valente notes that the “Catholic hierarchy vigorously defended the ideal of self-controlled manliness.”13 Part of this messaging again centered around a normative masculine persona that was able to resist its sexual impulses. Here again the aspect of masculine restraint is found intertwined with an anti-colonial, if not overtly violent, sentiment. The interplay of these influences on the postcolonial performance of masculinity further coalesced around a key political event in 1891. Charles Stewart Parnell had emerged in the 1870s as a powerhouse of Irish politics. He had facilitated an unprecedented level of unity in Irish politics and made massive inroads for the Irish home rule movement. A cult of personality developed around Parnell, who was frequently depicted in the guise of an ancient Irish warrior. Valente argues that “Every aspect of his political life, from his widespread popularity to the internecine nationalist conflict occasioned by his demise, can be better assessed if one considers the importance of his gender performance,”14 which closely aligned with the aforementioned ideals. His vitality and ability to garner discipline among political factions had won the respect of allies and enemies alike. Even in British circles he had avoided the common caricatures of the Irish as feminine and simian.15 Under his leadership it seemed that, for the first time, a political path towards independence would be viable. This image abruptly collapsed, however, when Parnell’s long term romantic relationship with Katherine O’Shea, a married woman (though she and her husband were separated many years prior) was revealed. With this scandal, his image as the idealized masculine figure, along with his political fortunes, collapsed. The Catholic Church roundly condemned Parnell and his Catholic political allies followed suit. From this single event, Irish political and cultural unity seemingly crumbled overnight. Parnell proved unable to regain the traction he had built before succumbing to an illness the following year. The disunity and infighting brought on by Parnell’s fall was seen by British opponents as proof of Parnell’s exceptionalism and as evidence that the wider population was incapable of home rule. Yeats, in his 1923 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, identified this as the moment “A disillusioned and embittered Ireland turned away from parliamentary politics.”16 Without a political route forward, the need emerged for a dividing line between the Parnellian era of political compromise and a reunified effort towards Irish independence. Fanon notes this moment in the process of decolonization as one where a few select intellectuals of a native population become decentralized, and the mass population must begin to lead the process.17 In the wake of this political turbulence, an Irish cultural movement began in earnest. Grote points toward organizations like the Gaelic League as providing a unified identity where “Irishness was thus no longer subject to party politics.”18 Gregory and Yeats sought to emulate this success in the literary realm. Though it did not claim any explicit political affiliations, the Abbey Theatre founders did state their intention to reclaim Irish stage representation for the Irish people. Valente argues that in Gregory’s insistence on an ennobling representation of Irish masculinity, “The ideological connection between dignity and fitness for freedom helped to power the discourse of manliness, enabling what was inculcated as a personal ethos to function as an instrument of geopolitical as well as gender hegemony.”19 In this way, the early works of Gregory and Yeats helped create a narrative of a potent Irish masculinity that was accessible to all Irish men. Butler argues explicitly that stage depictions which challenge gender assumptions can often be an early influence in shifting those perspectives, saying “the act is not contrasted with the real, but constitutes a reality that is in some sense new, a modality of gender that cannot readily be assimilated into the pre-existing categories that regulate gender.” 20 By redefining idealized masculinity on the stage, a new reality for Irish masculinity would find a wide audience. Cathleen ni Houlihan The three plays explored in this essay were all created in the midst of this transformative moment in Ireland, with Cathleen ni Houlihan premiering in 1902 and On Baile’s Strand in 1904, followed by At the Hawk's Well which was first performed in 1916. In each of these plays, an image of Ireland emerges which rejects colonial justifications and cultural anxieties in favor of portraying a history and a mythology of noble Irish heroism. Despite distinct stylistic and narrative differences between these works, all three plays also contain clear representations of intergenerational masculine figures which can be understood as father-son relationships. In each case, the figurative or literal son character is the embodiment of the postcolonial masculine ideal: unstoppably single minded, self-contained, and driven towards justified violent action. In contrast the father figures in each play are hopelessly driven by their desires and notably misguided in their actions. Through the course of these plays, the subtext then emerges that the elder generations of Irish political action were likewise led astray. The son figures in these plays serve as a roadmap towards a masculine ideal that is capable of violently rejecting British colonial rule. Gregory and Yeats’ Cathleen ni Houlihan21 is by far the most overtly nationalistic of the three pieces. The play is set in a bucolic family home as they prepare for the elder son Michael’s wedding. The arrival of the Old Woman, Cathleen ni Houlihan (an embodiment of Ireland itself), disrupts the stasis of the household as she seeks the aid of young men to restore her lost lands. The father of the house, Peter, is largely concerned with the dowry he has negotiated and the security that it will bring. Here we see the preoccupations of the father’s generation clearly. Peter is an image of masculine domesticity. His priorities are on advancing the family’s station in life and creating financial security. His reticence to offer the Old Woman a shilling, in fact, draws a sharp contrast to Michael’s willing sacrifice.22 Peter does acknowledge that the patriotic impulse, or at least its rumblings, might have existed for him in the past when he meets Cathleen saying, “I think I knew someone of that name once.”23 However, comfort and domesticity have taken root in him. The Old Woman's song makes him uneasy, and he attempts to discredit her story and to draw Michael away from her. But he quickly realizes that he cannot, and passively allows Michael to leave the house. Michael, on the other hand, experiences a profound transformation with the arrival of the Old Woman. In this process, he transforms into the ideal masculine figure. When he enters the home, his focus is on his upcoming nuptials. Peter points to his son’s sexual desire as the main source of his excitement, saying “It’s likely Michael himself was not thinking much of the fortune either, but of what sort the girl was to look at.”24 Michael agrees readily with this, yet he is quickly distracted by the cheering in the town. He then is instantly drawn to the Old Woman and her plight. Her effect upon him is seemingly hypnotic. He quickly offers her assistance despite her warnings that many will die in her service. He forgets entirely that his wedding is the next day. When his intended, Delia, arrives and it is announced that the cheering is a response to the French landing to aid an Irish rebellion, Michael abandons his fiancé to pursue the Old Woman and join the fight. According to Georg Grote, Yeats and Gregory clearly indicate Michael’s actions are a call to action for the audience.25 The message is clear that he has rejected domesticity and desire in favor of self-sacrifice and violent action, an example that all the young men of Ireland should follow. The character of the Cathleen ni Houlihan, made young and regal by Michael’s sacrifice, held very specific significance and cultural weight for Irish audiences as well. These feminine embodiments of Ireland had existed even in pre-colonial Irish mythology. Valente points to a common device in Gaelic myth whereby a “candidate for kingship accedes to the crown by way of a mating ritual in which the Sovereign Hag (Erin, the Poor Old Woman, the Shan Van Vocht, the Cailleach Beare, Cathleen) attempts to seduce or accost him and, then, upon sexual consummation, undergoes a metamorphosis into a beautiful young woman.”26 In the case of Yeats and Gregory’s Cathleen, however, she insists that she has never taken a lover and requires Michael to abandon his desires for Delia. Her demand of a blood sacrifice rather than a sexual union is consistent with masculine expectations of the Victorian aristocracy, the Catholic Church, and the nationalist movement alike.27 In this way, the classical Irish imagery brings itself in line with contemporary expectations of masculinity. The generational distinction attached to these expectations is further emphasized following Michael’s exit, when it is his younger brother Patrick that sees the Old Woman’s transformation to a young girl with the bearing of a queen, while his father, Peter, does not. At The Hawk’s Well In Yeats’s later work, At the Hawk’s Well, he once again attempts to contemporize Irish mythic tradition, this time employing the heroic figure of Cuchulain to embody the masculine ideal. Here again he places two generations of men in stark contrast to one another. He further emphasizes this dichotomy by simply identifying the central characters as Old Man and Young Man, even after the latter names himself as Cuchulain. And while they are not actually portrayed as father and son in the story, the overt paternalism of the Old Man and the disregard of the Young Man closely matches the father-son dynamics in the other two stories. In this case, the goal of the two men is the same: both seek to drink from a well which will grant them immortality. Within this barren and unforgiving landscape, a being that is both hawk and woman guards the well, along with a group of female warriors whose dance causes the Old Man to fall asleep whenever the well fills with water. With the Old Man referring to them as “Deceivers of men”,28 Yeats establishes female power over men as the central hindrance to the characters’ goal. The hawk woman’s eyes, which are able to curse and distract, and the dance of Aoife’s warriors that lulls men to sleep both carry suggestively sexual overtones. The Old Man seems helpless against these forces despite his resenting them. His only means to achieving his immortality is a passive persistence which he hopes will eventually yield better results. The cultural echoes of Parnell live in this character, hindered by his lack of willpower and his passivity despite sharing the Young Man’s goals. The Young Man here again shows his superiority in achieving their shared goal. He is impervious to the Old Man’s initial warnings that pursuing the well is a bitter life and that he should sail home instead. He shows that his focus is singular and dispassionate when he reproaches the Old Man’s assurance that there is “no house to sack among the hills / Nor beautiful woman to be carried off.”29 He also establishes himself as the moral superior of the Old Man, offering to share the well’s water when the Old Man greedily insists he either have the water for himself or at least get to drink first. Moreover, the Young Man seems completely immune to the persuasion of the land’s other inhabitants. When the Old Man is overcome with sleep, Cuchulain pursues the hawk woman forcefully, and eventually exits to engage in battle with Aoife’s warriors, undaunted by either supernatural powers or a sense of fear. Here again the ideals of unrelenting drive, noble action, and self-restraint find their home in the young masculine character, creating a strong contrast to his elder counterpart. The figure of Cuchulain was a potent symbol of Ireland's redefined masculinity in the postcolonial movement. An important component of the Irish literary revival was the efforts of Lady Gregory and her counterparts to translate Cuchulain's legends into English. These loose translations were carefully curated to omit the more sexual and animalistic qualities of the character in order to carefully align him with the contemporary masculine ideal.30 In this way Cuchulain came to embody the nationalist movement itself, and to claim it as a masculine impulse. His image was continuously used by political movements in Ireland in further generations as a symbol of national potency that could be used to justify differing sides of the same cause.31 It is no surprise that Eamon de Valera chose Oliver Shepard’s statue The Death of Cuchulain to be the official memorial to the 1916 Easter Rising. On Baile’s Strand It is curious then that Yeats opted to place the character of Cuchulain in a less flattering light in his play On Baile’s Strand. However, by examining the piece as a work of postcolonial allegory, his function in the story becomes clear. Here Cuchulain is cast in the ill-fated father figure role, inverting his position from At the Hawk’s Well. A key feature that distinguishes this play from the others analyzed here is that it follows a classic tragic structure. Cuchulain is presented as an essentially good king who is distracted by his desire for creature comforts and whose violence is easily misdirected. He first enters the great hall discussing his love affair with Aoife and his preference for fierce, passionate women. Cuchulain displays the inconstancy of his own passion, however, saying “One is content awhile / With a soft warm woman who folds up our lives / In silky network. Then, one knows not why, / But one's away after a flinty heart.”32 This is a clear violation of the new masculine ideal of sober self-control. The Young King with whom he is talking notes this, but in a stark showing of patriarchal normativity places the blame squarely on Aoife, pointing out that she “never married” and claiming fighting women are cheap with their favors.33 This cultural misstep has, unbeknownst to Cuchulain, produced a son who will be the source of his tragic downfall. At the same time, the father-figure proves inconsistent in his convictions and is incredibly susceptible to the influence of the other high king, Concobar. When the character of the Young Man first arrives and challenges Cuchulain to combat, he first accepts the challenge, then wavers. Moved by a look he recognizes in the Young Man, he attempts to placate and befriend the newcomer. Like Peter in Cathleen ni Houlihan, Cuchulain offers homely comforts, suggesting hunting, music, and women as alternatives to conflict.34 He is eventually goaded into the fight by the old kings and Concobar though, who insist his reticence to fight is the result of witchcraft. In this, Yeats shows the hero’s clouded judgment and his easy manipulation. His ability to be controlled is further emphasized when he attempts to attack Concobar, upon realizing that the Young Man he has killed was his own son. Concobar is easily able to redirect his aggression towards the sea, rendering Cuchulain’s martial prowess impotent. In this version of Cuchulain, the reflection of Charles Stewart Parnell is more fully realized. Yeats repurposes the ancient myth as a thinly veiled recounting of Parnell's downfall. Grote points out that this parallel was “quickly established by many in the audience”35 during its 1905 performance. Through this lens, the machinations of the rival king, Concobar (read Britain) bring down the great hero of Irish independence. While Cuchulain is shown to be the equal and perhaps the better of Concobar, he has accepted a subservient role in the court along with all of the lesser kings. Like Parnell, it is Cuchulain’s romantic history that is used by Concobar to distract and disempower the hero. By the end of the play, it is shown that Concobar holds some greater, unseen power that can redirect all of the other king’s violence away from himself. Into this situation, the character of the Young Man arrives seeking justice. He has been directed by Aoife (read Ireland) to seek revenge on Cuchulain (Parnell) for his abandonment. Unlike his father, the Young Man is principled, single-minded, and unyielding in his pursuit of violent action, again fulfilling the image of the idealized postcolonial man. The kings’ finery and comforts cannot distract him, and he maintains his vow to withhold his name from them. Cuchulain’s son ultimately emerges as the most admirable figure in the story despite being given very little to say. In the end it is not the Young Man’s failings that lead to the mutual downfall of father and son. This fault lies squarely on the manipulation of Cuchulain by Concobar. Generationality is again a key feature in this work. Unlike the other two stories, the generations represented here are more complex, offering a more nuanced allegorical picture of colonialism. New to this story is the generation of Concobar and the old kings. These figures are distinctly older than the father-son generation and represent the powerful European empires (in essence the colonist generation), with Concobar/Britain at the forefront. These figures perceive the greatest threat from the arrival of the Young Man, and continuously urge Cuchulain to kill him. Yeats notes in Cuchulain’s entrance with the young kings that he “though still young is a good deal older than the others.”36 These young kings seem to occupy a liminal generation between that of Cuchulain and that of the Young Man, standing in for other colonized nations. As noted above, these men have moved beyond the old kings’ excesses, and express their preference for a gentle incarnation of femininity that aligns with the new masculine ideal. However, they fail to live up to this image when they fall victim to Concobar’s influence and join Cuchulain in attacking the sea. It thus appears that Aoife’s son, and by association Ireland’s, is solely capable of resisting this power. The Young Man’s refusal to reveal his name though he is “of that ancient seed and carry / The signs about this body and in these bones”37 allows him to be cast as an everyman. Though they may lack the station of the other great men, it makes clear that this generation is exceptional, unmatched in their drive and sacrifice, and uniquely capable of instilling fear in the hearts of the old kings. Conclusion These consistent representations of intergenerational masculinity in the early plays of Gregory and Yeats addressed a specific moment in Ireland’s process of decolonization. It was an indication of a need to ease cultural anxieties around Irish masculinity by clearly dividing the past from the present. The recent fall of Parnell and its political fallout had left significant doubts about a diplomatic path towards home rule and created political fractures in the populace. The new generation of masculinity that these plays envisioned was one that would not equivocate in its calls for independence. Earthly temptations could not sway its moral conservatism. It would be unyielding in the pursuit of its goals. It was a model for empowerment, albeit one based on patriarchal standards, that would render the Irish man and the British man equals. Franz Fanon identifies this moment in the process of decolonization, saying “Thus the native discovers that his life, his breath, his beating heart are the same as those of the settler. He finds out that the settler's skin is not of any more value than a native's skin; and it must be said that this discovery shakes the world in a very necessary manner.”38 This effort to raise up Irish masculinity proved instrumental in forwarding the nationalist movement. While this narrative served to foment a sense of militant action in Ireland, its repercussions have resonated through the culture ever since. It contributed to a wider expansion of patriarchal standards in the culture. While non-male contribution to the independence effort was widespread, both militarily and otherwise, the broader culture often minimized these narratives. Beatty points to this tension in the nationalist movement’s treatment of Cumann na mBan, a women’s military organization whose efforts were consistently minimized, and who he argues, in service to the nationalist agenda “were ultimately complicit in facilitating the Volunteers’ masculine self-image.”39 Repressive gender expectations further expanded in the Irish Free state. With the close collaboration of the Catholic hierarchy, laws controlling contraceptives, sexual expression, and artistic freedom vastly expanded. The cultural unity that the Irish Revival had fostered also dissipated rapidly under political tensions in the revolution’s aftermath. The unyielding and violently driven men that the movement had fostered proved unwilling to compromise their political beliefs, resulting in a bloody civil war and fostering an era of nationalist isolationism that persisted for decades. Butler identifies this pitfall in the societal conceptions of gender, saying “it is primarily political interests which create the social phenomena of gender itself, and … without a radical critique of gender constitution feminist theory fails to take stock of the way in which oppression structures the ontological categories through which gender is conceived.”40 These early works of the Abbey theatre directly promoted a reimagining of the country’s masculine performance which would repress sexual impulse and promote violence and lack of compromise. In an effort to push Irish culture towards independence, Irish nationalism and Irish theatre took on the example of those already in power and perpetuated their oppressive patriarchal normativity. Endnotes 1 Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1963), 83. 2 Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal 40, no. 4 (1988): 519. https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893. 3 Fanon, The Wretched, 58-60. 4 Butler, “Performative Acts”, 526. 5 Joseph Valente, The Myth of Manliness in Irish National Culture, 1880-1922 (Baltimore: University of Illinois Press, 2010) 12. 6 Georg Grote, Anglo-Irish Theatre and the Formation of a Nationalist Political Culture Between 1890 and 1930 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003) 216. 7 Fanon, The Wretched, 51-52. 8 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 4-5. 9 Grote, Anglo-Irish Theatre, 215. 10 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 19. 11 Aiden Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884-1938, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) 4-5. 12 Keating, Anthony, "The Uses and Abuses of Censorship: God, Ireland and the Battle to Extend Censorship Post 1929," Estudios Irlandeses - Journal of Irish Studies 9 (2014): 68. 13 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 51. 14 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 27. 15 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 31-32. 16 William Butler Yeats, “Nobel Lecture,” presented December 15, 1923. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1923/yeats/lecture/. 17 Fanon, “The Wretched”, 44. 18 Grote, “Anglo-Irish Theatre”, 106. 19 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 79-80. 20 Butler, “Performative Acts”, 527. 21 The debate around the authorship of this piece has been the subject of ongoing scholarship, with many now believing Yeats’s contribution to be minimal, despite being solely credited with the work in the past. For the purposes of this essay, Gregory and Yeats are simply credited as coauthors. 22 W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, “Cathleen ni Houlihan” in Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama: Backgrounds and Criticism. 2nd ed., ed. John P. Harrington, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009) 8-11. 23 Yeats and Gregory, “Cathleen ni Houlihan”, 9. 24 Yeats and Gregory, “Cathleen ni Houlihan”, 5. 25 Grote, Anglo-Irish Theatre, 22. 26 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 95. 27 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 96-120. 28 W.B. Yeats, “At the Hawk’s Well” in Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama: Backgrounds and Criticism. 2nd ed., ed. John P. Harrington, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009) 24. 29 Yeats, “Hawk’s Well”, 23. 30 Valente, The Myth of Manliness, 145. 31 Gregory J Goalwin. "The Curious Case of Cú Chulainn: Nationalism, Culture, and Meaning‐ Making in the Contested Symbols of Northern Ireland." Studies In Ethnicity & Nationalism 19, no. 3 (2019): 307-308. https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12304. 32 Yeats, W. B., “On Baile’s Strand” in The Short Plays Vol 2: “Do Not Wait to Strike Till the Iron Is Hot; but Make It Hot by Striking.” (London: Stage Door, 2013), 11, https://search- ebscohost- com.ezp1.villanova.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1024909&site=ehost- live&scope=site. 33 Yeats, W. B., “On Baile’s Strand”, 8. 34 Yeats, “On Baile’s Strand”, 15. 35 Grote, Anglo-Irish Theatre, 158. 36 Yeats, “On Baile’s Strand”, 7. 37 Yeats, “On Baile’s Strand”, 14. 38 Fanon, “The Wretched”, 45. 39 Beatty, Masculinity and Power, 81. 40 Butler, “Performative Acts”, 529. Bibliography Beatty, Aidan. Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884-1938. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40, no. 4 (1988): 519–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963. Goalwin, Gregory J. "The Curious Case of Cú Chulainn: Nationalism, Culture, and Meaning‐Making in the Contested Symbols of Northern Ireland." Studies In Ethnicity & Nationalism 19, no. 3 (2019): 307-324. https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12304. Grote, Georg. Anglo-Irish Theatre and the Formation of a Nationalist Political Culture Between 1890 and 1930. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003. Keating, Anthony. "The Uses and Abuses of Censorship: God, Ireland and the Battle to Extend Censorship Post 1929." Estudios Irlandeses - Journal of Irish Studies 9 (2014): 67-79. Valente, Joseph. The Myth of Manliness in Irish National Culture, 1880-1922. Baltimore: University of Illinois Press, 2010. Accessed December 12, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central. Yeats, W. B. The Short Plays Vol 2: “Do Not Wait to Strike Till the Iron Is Hot; but Make It Hot by Striking.” London: Stage Door, 2013. https://search-ebscohost- com.ezp1.villanova.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1024909&site=ehost- live&scope=site. Yeats, W.B. “At the Hawk’s Well” in Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama: Backgrounds and Criticism. 2nd ed., ed. John P. Harrington, 20-28. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Yeats, William Butler. “Nobel Lecture.” presented December 15, 1923, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1923/yeats/lecture/. Yeats, W.B. and Lady Gregory. “Cathleen ni Houlihan” in Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama: Backgrounds and Criticism. 2nd ed., ed. John P. Harrington, 3-11. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009.