Teresa Deevy

Teresa Deevy (21 January 1894 – 19 January 1963) was an Irish dramatist and writer, who was deaf from the age of 19. Best known for her works for theatre, she was also a short story writer, and writer for radio.

Early life Teresa Deevy was born on 21 January 1894 in Waterford, Ireland. She was the youngest of 13 siblings, all girls. Her mother was Mary Feehan Deevy and her father was Edward Deevy who died when she was two years old. She started writing plays and contributing articles and stories to the press around 1919.

Nationalist movement Deevy returned to Ireland in 1919, during the Irish War of Independence, and this greatly influenced her writing and ideology. She was strongly involved in the nationalist cause, and much admired Constance Markievicz. She joined the Cumann na mBan, an Irish women's Republican group and auxiliary to the Irish Volunteers. Her Republican, and even proto-feminist, views can be clearly seen in plays such as Katie Roche and The King of Spain's Daughter.

At the Abbey Theatre In 1930, Deevy had her first production at the Abbey Theatre, Reapers. Many more followed in rapid succession, such as In Search of Valour, Temporal Powers, The King of Spain's Daughter and Katie Roche, the play she is perhaps best known for. These works came just after writers such as W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory and many believed she would be among those who would take up the mantle as part of a new generation of Irish playwrights for a theatre whose reputation had always rested on its writers. Her works were generally very well-received with some of them winning competitions, becoming headline performances, or being revived numerous times. Her plays were often quietly subversive, many being written just before or during the birth of the Republic of Ireland in 1937. After a number of plays staged in the Abbey, her relationship with the theatre soured over the rejection of her play, Wife to James Whelan in 1937. This was later produced by Daisy Bannard Cogley at her Studio Theatre Club, Upper Mount Street in 1956. Two of her plays were eventually broadcast on television by the BBC while they have also enjoyed several stage-revivals since her death, most recently by the Mint Theater Company in New York.

Later life In 1954, Deevy was elected to the Irish Academy of Letters in recognition of her contribution to Irish theatre. Deevy enjoyed renewed interest in her work from the mid-1950s onwards after Irish poet John Jordan published a study of her plays in the University Review in 1956.

Legacy Katie Roche, Temporal Powers, Wife to James Whelan and The Suitcase Under the Bed were staged and produced by Mint Theater Company in New York, under the "Teresa Deevy Project" that aims to acknowledge and honour what some describe as "One of Ireland’s best and most neglected dramatists."

An honorary blue plaque is hung in honour of Deevy in the city of Waterford, on Passage Road, by courtesy of the Waterford Civic Trust.

In 2011, Deevy's papers were deposited with the Maynooth University library & archives. The holdings include draft and finished versions of Deevy's completed works and incomplete works as well as contemporary newspaper clippings related to Deevy's works, published versions of Deevy's writings and personal correspondence.

Her play, The King of Spain's Daughter, is currently on the reading list for Junior Cycle English.

Published works

Stage Plays The Reapers (lost play) (1930) A Disciple/ In Search of Valour (1931) Temporal Powers (1932) The King of Spain's Daughter (1935) Katie Roche (1936) The Wild Goose (1936) Wife to James Whelan (1937) Strange Birth (1946) Light Falling (1947) Within a Marble City (1948) Eyes and No Eyes The Finding of the Ball In the Cellar of My Friend MacConglinne A Minute's Wait 3 plays written under the alias D.V. Goode, Practice and Precept, Let Us Live, and The Firstborn At least 3 unfinished, untitled plays

Radio Plays Wife to James Whelan (radio adaptation of Deevy's stage play) Polinka (radio play adaptation of Chekhov's "Polinka") (1946) Dignity (radio play) (1947) Light Falling (radio adaptation of Deevy's stage play) Within a Marble City (radio adaptation of Deevy's stage play) Holiday House Going Beyond Alma's Glory (radio play) (1949) Concerning Meagher, or How Did He Die? In the Cellar of My Friend (radio adaptation of Deevy's stage play) Supreme Dominion (1957) One Look- and What it Led to Possession-Cattle of the Gods (ballet treatment/ libretto)

Short stories Strange People (1946) Just Yesterday: A Story The Greatest Wonder in the World: A Christmas Story Alen Brian of the Boers Lisheen at the Valley Farm John Potter's Story Flash Back Adventure

Essays Patricia Lynch: A Study (1948) Man Proposes