J.M. Synge photo

J.M. Synge

Edmund John Millington Synge (pronounced /sɪŋ/) was an Irish playwright, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre. He is best known for the play The Playboy of the Western World, which caused riots during its opening run at the Abbey theatre. Synge wrote many well known plays, including "Riders to the Sea", which is often considered to be his strongest literary work.

Although he came from an Anglo-Irish background, Synge's writings are mainly concerned with the world of the Roman Catholic peasants of rural Ireland and with what he saw as the essential paganism of their world view.


“One’s mother country is better than all else, and gloomy is life when a man sees not his home each morning”
J.M. Synge
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“...drawn to the cities where you'd hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing from your heart...”
J.M. Synge
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“A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drownded, for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't. But WE do be afraid of the sea, and we do only be drownded now and again.”
J.M. Synge
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