The Steward of Christendom

Author: Sebastian Barry

Biographical Note:Barry, Sebastian (1955- ) was born in Dublin, Ireland to Francis and Joan Barry. At Trinity College in Dublin he obtained a BA in 1977. In his writing career he has produced novels, a collection of poems, and quite a few plays. His most famous works include The Steward of Christendom, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, and The Only True History of Lizzie Finn. He has lived in France, Switzerland, England, Greece, Italy, and Iowa and became an honorary writing fellow at the University of Iowa.

Background: Barry has a habit of writing about members of his family. In The Steward of Christendom the main character is Thomas Dunne, Barry’s great-grandfather. In the play, as in real life, Dunne was the chief superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) from 1913-1922. He oversaw the area surrounding Dublin Castle until the Irish Free State takeover on January 16, 1922

The DMP were the unarmed (billy clubs) police force in Dublin. They were much less notorious than the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), who carried rifles. During the Easter Rebellion the DMP was taken off the streets because they were of no use and in danger not having guns. After Michael Collins and his men got control of Dublin Castle many members of the DMP were out of jobs. In Dunne’s case, he was offered a position in the new administration’s police force (the Civic Guard), but it was much lower than the one he had previously held. After the Free State came into power and especially after the Civil War, those who held positions in the British government were disliked and often feared for their lives. There is one scene in The Steward of Christendom in which Dunne fears of reprisal for being a “loyal catholic gobshite” is manifested in a hallucination in which he thinks the people of the town, in which he now lives, are trying to kill him.

World War I plays a small role as part of the setting for the play. Although there are no scenes that take place in or even during the war, Dunne is often visited in his imagination by his son who died in the war. Willie, the son, was part of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, also known as the Rifles.

Précis of work:The main theme of The Steward of Christendom is a look at the other side of Irish history. Throughout the play Barry shows the feelings and sentiments of a family of nationalists, and questions the idea that Irish history is synonymous with Irish vs. English history. The main character is Thomas Dunne, the chief superintendent of the DMP who were “country men, and Catholics to boot, and [they] loved their King and [they] loved their country.” Dunne even has a monologue in which he compares his love for Queen Victoria with his love for his wife, and even speculates that he loved the Queen more.

Dunne’s family also shows their loyalty to the crown in the play. The youngest daughter Dolly goes down with her friends to wave to sailors who are leaving port. They are confronted by a middle-aged woman who slaps one of them and calls them “jezebels” for waving to the sailors. When a man tries to calm her down and says he served in the military in WWI she “look[s] back at him, as if he were a viper, or a traitor.” Thomas’s son served in the war as well and Thomas makes a good point when he says that Willie “died to save Europe” and not to save Ireland. Certainly that is how many others felt as well, such as the middle-aged woman, who sees the only connection between serving the British army during WWI and being an Irish patriot as not being able to be both.

Smith, an orderly with the insane asylum at which Dunne stays, represents a common belief that one cannot be loyal to the crown and be a true Irishman. He calls Dunne a “Castle Catholic bugger” and a “big loyal Catholic gobshite.” Smith’s brother was killed during the Dublin Lock-Out of workers in 1913 by the DMP, and apparently still holds a grudge. His animosity goes even as far as telling Dunne that he’d kill him if he weren’t crazy.

The play tries to show that there is a whole group of people in Ireland that did not care for independence and were perfectly happy, even proud, to be under British rule. They were not necessarily evil or anti-Irish, but normal people with families who did not feel as though the British were wronging the Irish. Dunne himself was ruined by the independence of Ireland. A once proud chief policeman in Dublin he was reduced to wearing long johns and hallucinating about better times. He is reduced to an apathetic shell who gives away his clothes and lives in a bad mental home paid for by a horribly diminished pension. When he hears of Collins dying, he cries, probably not because he liked Collins, but because he loved his once strong Ireland which has been destroyed.

Annotated Bibliography:

by John Hanner
for HONR 209V
Autumn 2002