Riders to the Sea

Riders to the Sea (1904) is a one-act Irish play by John Millington Synge, originally performed in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The play portrays the events of one day in the cottage of a low-income family living on Inishmaan, one of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, as they cope with the loss of male relatives to the rough waters between the islands and mainland Ireland. This short play incorporates themes such as The Contrast Between Christianity and Pagan Mysticism, The Role of Place and Nature in Irish Culture, and The Relationship Between Tragedy and Catharsis.

This guide references the 1993 Dover Thrift Edition, which contains both Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of the Western World (1907).

Plot Summary

Riders to the Sea opens on a small cottage on the island of Inishmaan, one of the three Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. A young woman, Cathleen, cares for the household as her younger sister, Nora, enters with a small bundle. Nora explains that their priest gave her the bundle of clothing, which washed up on shore, and asked that she and her sister identify whether the clothes belonged to their brother Michael, who is missing after a sea crossing. They agree to hide the bundle and look at it when their mother, Maurya, who is waking in the next room, is away; they and the priest do not want to cause her sorrow if the clothes do not belong to Michael.

The girls tell Maurya that the priest will not stop their brother Bartley from going on the sea that day if he chooses, as the priest believes that God would not take Maurya’s final son away from her. Bartley enters and explains that a boat is leaving for Connemara (on mainland Ireland) that day, and he needs to take it so he can sell their pony. Interspersed with his explanations are Maurya’s calls for him not to go and risk dying on the crossing; Bartley and Maurya ignore the other’s words, speaking over each other. When he leaves without a blessing from his mother, Cathleen scolds Maurya and, seeing that they forgot to give Bartley his bread, urges Maurya to take the bread to him and give him her blessing as well.

While Maurya is gone, the girls pull down the bundle of clothes and examine them. Cathleen thinks the shirt could be anyone’s, but Nora recognizes the stitching on the stocking as her own, done for their brother Michael. They weep, but they pull themselves together as Maurya approaches, hoping to tell her when she is not in such a dark emotional space. However, Maurya is in shock as she re-enters. She claims she tried to give Bartley her blessing, but as he passed her, her voice refused to leave her body and she saw a vision of Michael, dressed in new clothes, riding the gray pony behind Bartley. She takes this vision as a sign that Bartley will die on the sea.

As Maurya speaks of her many losses, having seen several sons, her husband, and her father-in-law die while working on the sea, the girls hear a cry outside. Women from the town, draped in red petticoats, enter, weeping, and they tell Maurya and the girls that Bartley is dead. Some men follow the women, carrying Bartley in a sail with red fabric covering him. As the townswomen keen, or wail in grief, Maurya calmly uses holy water on Bartley’s body to prepare him for burial. When Nora notes that Maurya seems much calmer than when Michael disappeared, Cathleen explains that Maurya is broken after losing so many men to the sea. Maurya, finished preparing the body, decides that in a world where all people live and die, a good burial, like Bartley will receive, is all one can hope for.