This one-act play from the legendary William Butler Yeats offers a compelling look at the intersection of Irish mythology and political history. With its lyrical language, rich symbolism, and haunting characters, it is a masterpiece of dramatic literature. Whether you are a fan of Yeats, a lover of poetry, or simply looking for a powerful and thought-provoking theatrical experience, this play is not to be missed. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats is known for his poetry, but Yeats also expressed himself through other forms of writing. In this play, set in 18th Century Ireland, Yeats expresses himself wonderfully in another format in this wonderful work.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an instrumental figure in the "Irish Literary Revival" of the 20th Century that redefined Irish writing. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and received honorary degrees from Queen's University (Belfast), Trinity College (Dublin), and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It can be difficult to characterize Yeats. He was a complicated man whose work reflected the internal struggle he felt between art and life. In 1899 Yeats helped found the Irish National Theatre Society, which later became the famous Abbey Theatre of Dublin. Written in collaboration with Lady Gregory, "Cathleen Ni Houlihan" appeared on the bill of plays produced in 1902 by the theatre, and although a short work, it was frequently revived until World War II. The story is based on the battle at Killala, one of many conflicts in Ireland's long fight for independence. Yeats depicts the love of family, poverty, anguish and hardship of the Irish peasantry through the symbolic portrayal of Ireland as a female spirit.

Though men dominated early Irish society, women dominated the supernatural. Goddesses of war, fertility, and sovereignty ordered human destiny. Christian monks, in recording the old stories, turned these pagan deities into saints, like St Brigit, or into mortal queens like Medb of Connacht. The Morrigan, the Great Queen, war goddess, remains a figure of awe, but her pagan functions are glossed over. She perches, crow of battle, on the dying warrior CuChulainn's pillar stone, but her role as his tutelary deity, and as planner and fomentor of the whole tremendous Tain, the war between Ulster and Connacht, is obscured. Unlike the Anglo-Irish authors who in modern times treated the same material in English, the good Irish monks were not shocked by her sexual aggressiveness. They show her coupling with the Dagda, the 'good god' of the Tuatha De Danann before the second battle of Mag Tuired, but they conceal that this act - by a goddess of war, fertility and sovereignty - gives the Dagda's people victory and the possession of Ireland. Or they reduce the sovereignty to allegory - when Niall of the Nine Hostages sleeps with the Hag she is allegorical of the trials of kingship! With the English invasion and colonization, the power of the goddesses diminishes further. The book shows the fall in status of the pagan goddesses, first under medieval Christianity and then under Anglo-Irish culture. That this fall shows a loss in the recognition of the roles of women seems evident from the texts. This human loss only begins to be restored when, presiding over the severed heads in Yeats's The Death of Cuchulain, the Morrigu declares, 'I arranged the Dance.'