Eva St. John, one of the title characters in Michael West’s Dublin by Lamplight, was based on an actual feminist/political activist during the early 1900′s named Maud Gonne. However unlike Eva life was not particularly easy for Gonne as her
opinions, political ideals, and lack of care for societal norms made her a walking target, which was only worsened by the birth of her two illegitimate children Georges and Isleut, of which only Isleut survived. Though Gonne came from Irish as well as English roots after her father passed when she was twenty she began “a love affair with Irish revolutionary politics” (Broderick 102) and never stopped. In 1900 she founded Irelands first women’s nationalist organization, Inghinidhe na hEireann (Daughter of Ireland), which was the catalyst, if not the “mothers,” of Irish theatre. In conjunction with the artistic aid of Gonne’s biggest admirer William B. Yeats during 1902 Irish theatre was born, and has flourished ever since.
William B. Yeats
Shana Pereira
