Odd Women Out: Waterford Playwrights Teresa Deevy and Rosamond Jacob

Speakers: Dr Úna Kealy and Mr Aaron Kent
Lecture: 19^th May 2022
Time: 7pm
 

In this lecture Dr Úna Kealy and IRC Postgraduate Scholar Aaron Kent discuss and explore the dramatic work of playwrights, Teresa Deevy (1896-1963) and Rosamond Jacob (1888-1960, Waterford women who resisted and countered the cultural and political momentum of their time. Both Deevy and Jacob were Waterford women who asked important questions of Irish society throughout their life and through their work.

Close contemporaries and friends they addressed similar issues in their writing and activism, although they did so from different cultural backgrounds. Both women wrote across a variety of literary forms but it was their plays in particular that went against the grain of popular sexist, discriminatory and patriarchal attitudes in the mid-twentieth century: they remain dynamic and relevant to twenty-first century audiences. A growing body of theatre makers, researchers and historians, much like Deevy and Jacob’s contemporary critics, are discovering that these writers offer valuable insights into Irish society and that their plays have much to say to contemporary audiences.  

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