The course considers the founding principles of the Abbey Theatre (1905) in the context of the Irish struggle for political and national emancipation from the British rule. It focuses on the Abbey’s ideal of a theatre that would harmonically combine the national quest for an autonomous Irish cultural identity, as expressed by W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, with experimental forms of drama. It examines plays by W. B. Yeats, John Millington Synge and Sean O’Casey by emphasising those areas in which these dramatists diverge from the oppressive catholic and nationalist orthodoxy that emerged as the dominant ideological discourse.