John Millington Synge (1871 – 1909)

Written by Ben Kesp 

John Millington (J.M) Synge was born in Rathfarnham, Dublin in April 1871 into a Church of Ireland family. His father, a barrister died when John was only one and he was educated privately at home before going on to graduate in languages from Trinity College, Dublin. Following that, he moved to German and onto Italy before finding himself in Paris to study languages and it was here that he met with W.B. Yeats who convinced him to get to know Ireland and its culture. 

Listening to the advice from Yeats, Synge spent much of his time after this on the Aran Islands studying the Irish language and folklore. During his time on the islands, he took the stories and began to create his works of literature, turning the rhythms of the Irish and translated the thought/speech patterns into English, thus giving a poetic and rhythmic language to his plays. 

One of his greatest plays and one I have enjoyed many times since first discovering it as a child is the 3-act play, “The Playboy of the Western World”. The play was not received well at the time in Ireland when it first showed in 1907, and when it toured the US. The play takes place in the early years of the twentieth century in County Mayo, Ireland in the setting of a pub (bar) owned by Michael James Flaherty and has as its central character Christy Mahon. Christy is a young man from a farm who tells the patrons at the pub that he has killed his father. Flaherty’s daughter, Pegeen, a barmaid at the establishment, becomes taken with Christy’s story. The play is known for its use of poetic language and Irish dialects. 

Synge became one of the leading figures in the Irish Literary Renaissance and along with Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Russell, Edward Martyn, founded the Irish National Theatre Society and the opening of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in 1904. 

Before his death, from Hodgkin’s disease in March 1909, Synge went onto produce six more plays. 

“There is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting” J.M. Synge