Abstract

That Brazen Electric Strap of a Wan (2016) was written to coincide with the centenary of Ireland’s Easter Rising against British rule in 1916. In this full length stage play, the playwright explores the extent to which the freedom of the country contrasted with Ireland’s continuing oppression of women until the turn of the millennium. The play further maps the ways in which this oppression also negatively affected those women who strove to follow the oppressive rules.

Recognising at last that her obedient life was a useless endeavor,“Good girl” Treas Callaghan seeks to absorb her late sisters’ wild spirit, and have fun at last. Nearing the end of her mortal coil and rendered invisible and powerless, she opts to cross to the wild side once inhabited by her long dead sister, the brazen Moll. Treas hires Ronaldo, a troubled Dublin sex worker to dispense with her virginity. Further complications arise when new District Nurse Fintan pays Treas a routine visit and the encounter churns up unwanted memories of his own. An original consideration of the scars of Ireland’s past century and the treatment of women during the greater part of the twentieth century.