Lady Gregory's The Rising of the Moon was first produced by the Irish National Theatre on March 9, 1907. At the time, the National Theatre was still reeling from the public reaction to John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World. When Playboy opened in January of that year, it was roundly condemned by Irish nationalists but received a generally favorable reception from the politically conservative Anglo-Irish community. Rising received almost the opposite reaction. The Anglo-Irish press criticized Gregory's play for presenting Irish police officers as bumbling and easily corrupted, while nationalist papers complimented the play's patriotic spirit. The reception of Synge's and Gregory's plays highlights the fact that, in 1907, the Irish National Theatre essentially served two audiences: a nationalist audience who cheered any attack on British authority but were sensitive to any...
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Citation: Cusack, George. "The Rising of the Moon". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 November 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16619, accessed 06 December 2025.]
