'What
call had you coming here thinking to change us? We have our ways,
our laws, and our language, the same as the English have, and
we're proud of them . . .'
The
O'Neill, Thomas Kilroy's first stage play, was written in
1966. It dramatizes the fate of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone (c.1540-1616),
whose defeat by the English at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 led
to the final dissolution of the ancient Irish order of government
and the Plantation of Ulster.
Kilroy fixes his gaze on the relationship between colonist and native
as he considers some of the most traumatic events in Irish history
with reverberations into the present day.
'History
will not be able to tell the difference between us.'
