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Our Lady of Sligo
From her hospital bed in 1950's Dublin, Mai O'Hara recalls her life through morphine-induced memories and hallucinations. Dying of liver cancer caused by alcoholism, Mai reminisces on her youthful promise as a member of the Galway bourgeoisie; the death of one of her children; and of the marriage fueled by liquor, bickering, and remorse, to her husband, Jack who visits her on occasion as does her daughter, Joanie. Jack's visits to her bedside are a testament to the mutual hatred they share and the mutual dependence they have on each other. Through it all, Mai uses her mordant wit and vanity to pull her out of painful realizations.
Once the first woman in Sligo to wear trousers, Mai emerges not only the victim of a broken marriage but a victim of an Ireland in which the Catholic middle-class has been nullified by spiritual and political isolation after the Civil War.
Once the first woman in Sligo to wear trousers, Mai emerges not only the victim of a broken marriage but a victim of an Ireland in which the Catholic middle-class has been nullified by spiritual and political isolation after the Civil War.
72 pages, Paperback
First published March 26, 1998
2 people are currently reading
326 people want to read
About the author
Sebastian Barry
50 books2,168 followersSebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist and poet. He is noted for his dense literary writing style and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers
Barry's literary career began in poetry before he began writing plays and novels. In recent years his fiction writing has surpassed his work in the theatre in terms of success, having once been considered a playwright who wrote occasional novels.
He has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), the latter of which won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His 2011 novel On Canaan's Side was long-listed for the Booker. He won the Costa Book of the Year again - in 2017 for Days Without End.
Barry's literary career began in poetry before he began writing plays and novels. In recent years his fiction writing has surpassed his work in the theatre in terms of success, having once been considered a playwright who wrote occasional novels.
He has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for his novels A Long Long Way (2005) and The Secret Scripture (2008), the latter of which won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His 2011 novel On Canaan's Side was long-listed for the Booker. He won the Costa Book of the Year again - in 2017 for Days Without End.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 19, 2017
Sebastian Barry is gradually worming his way onto my favourite authors list.It's not a happy story but I was spellbound.Despite how nasty Mai can be,Barry manages to make her a sympathetic figure.The characterizations are spot on,and the dialogue is very sharp(and irish).
January 10, 2023
First Performance: Royal National Theatre in co-production with Out of Joint, directed by Max Stafford-Clark; on tour at the Oxford Playhouse on 26 March 1998;
First Theatrical Performance: Cottesloe Theatre (now Dorfman Theatre), London): 9 April 1998
Irish Premiere: Gate Theatre, Dublin: 14 September 1998
Length: 2 hours and 40 minutes, including 15 minutes interval, 64 pages
The play is almost a companion piece to Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty: it was first staged in the same year in which the novel was published and if you had read the novel, you had already met the main characters of the play - Mai O'Hara, the narrator of most of the story is the sister-in-law of Eneas. We saw her losing her child in the novel but both her and her husband Jack were peripheral characters - their suffering was mostly hinted at than shown. Here, the two of them take center stage and tell a different Irish story of the first half of the 20th century. You do not need to have read the novel to understand the play but I suspect that it may be adding a lot more background thus allowing the characters to seem more alive.
It is 1953 and Mai O'Hara is dying in a Dublin hospital. She lived through 2 wars and the fight for Irish independence, through losing a child and becoming an alcoholic. But she also has a living daughter - and it is the husband, Jack, and the daughter Joanie who come to visit her. Mai believes that she has another visitor as well - her own dead father, coming to take her home. Slowly, it emerges that Mai is dying of cancer, probably at least partially caused by her drinking.
We meet Mai in the last days of her life but we get her complete story. The structure of the play is similar to that of "The Steward of Christendom" before it and of the novel "Annie Dunne" later - flashbacks and memories slowly fill in the gaps of a life. Just like Eneas and later Annie, Mai was born with the century and saw all her expectations fall, all her hopes dashed. The tragedy of the country is tied to her personal tragedies - from the loss of a sister through the loss of a child to the loss of her own self at the bottom of a bottle.
Unlike most diseases, alcoholism is usually considered shameful and getting help for it was never something people could do - especially if the people were women and not wealthy. Women are expected to take care of their families, no matter what. And Mai succeeds - to a point. He daughter may have wished to have had different parents, ones who do not drink and shout at each other, but she is still there when her mother is about to die.
Weaving together personal histories with the bigger history of the nation is one of Barry's specialties and this play is not an exception. And even if Mai remains home (unlike Eneas), she is still lost.
First Theatrical Performance: Cottesloe Theatre (now Dorfman Theatre), London): 9 April 1998
Irish Premiere: Gate Theatre, Dublin: 14 September 1998
Length: 2 hours and 40 minutes, including 15 minutes interval, 64 pages
The play is almost a companion piece to Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty: it was first staged in the same year in which the novel was published and if you had read the novel, you had already met the main characters of the play - Mai O'Hara, the narrator of most of the story is the sister-in-law of Eneas. We saw her losing her child in the novel but both her and her husband Jack were peripheral characters - their suffering was mostly hinted at than shown. Here, the two of them take center stage and tell a different Irish story of the first half of the 20th century. You do not need to have read the novel to understand the play but I suspect that it may be adding a lot more background thus allowing the characters to seem more alive.
It is 1953 and Mai O'Hara is dying in a Dublin hospital. She lived through 2 wars and the fight for Irish independence, through losing a child and becoming an alcoholic. But she also has a living daughter - and it is the husband, Jack, and the daughter Joanie who come to visit her. Mai believes that she has another visitor as well - her own dead father, coming to take her home. Slowly, it emerges that Mai is dying of cancer, probably at least partially caused by her drinking.
We meet Mai in the last days of her life but we get her complete story. The structure of the play is similar to that of "The Steward of Christendom" before it and of the novel "Annie Dunne" later - flashbacks and memories slowly fill in the gaps of a life. Just like Eneas and later Annie, Mai was born with the century and saw all her expectations fall, all her hopes dashed. The tragedy of the country is tied to her personal tragedies - from the loss of a sister through the loss of a child to the loss of her own self at the bottom of a bottle.
Unlike most diseases, alcoholism is usually considered shameful and getting help for it was never something people could do - especially if the people were women and not wealthy. Women are expected to take care of their families, no matter what. And Mai succeeds - to a point. He daughter may have wished to have had different parents, ones who do not drink and shout at each other, but she is still there when her mother is about to die.
Weaving together personal histories with the bigger history of the nation is one of Barry's specialties and this play is not an exception. And even if Mai remains home (unlike Eneas), she is still lost.
November 10, 2025
Ο πρώτος μου Μπάρρυ. Μαύρο, κατάμαυρο μα εξαιρετικό. Το παραλήρημα μέσα από τη μορφίνη μιας ετοιμοθάνατης πενηντάρας μέσα στην πτέρυγα καρκινοπαθών στο Δουβλίνο του 1953. Η γιαγιά του συγγραφέα την οποία δεν πρόλαβε να γνωρίσει.
Δεν συνηθίζω να διαβάζω Θέατρο, θεωρώ πως έχει δημιουργηθεί για να το παρακολουθούμε ζωντανά επί σκηνής κι όχι για να κάνουμε ανάγνωση το «σενάριό» του σπίτι μας. Μα σιγά μην ανεβεί ποτέ στην Ελλάδα αυτό το έργο!
Με τρομάζει μα και ταρακουνά το μήνυμά του, πως μπορεί στη ζωή μας να κάνουμε μία μόνον λάθος κίνηση, έναν λάθος γάμο εν προκειμένω, και αυτό να διαλύσει τα πάντα χωρίς περιθώριο διορθώσεων: απελπισία, θάνατος μωρού, αλκοολισμός, καρκίνος στο ήπαρ, ανυπόφορο τέλος μέσα στις τύψεις. Πόσο σκληρή ήταν η ζωή.
Δεν συνηθίζω να διαβάζω Θέατρο, θεωρώ πως έχει δημιουργηθεί για να το παρακολουθούμε ζωντανά επί σκηνής κι όχι για να κάνουμε ανάγνωση το «σενάριό» του σπίτι μας. Μα σιγά μην ανεβεί ποτέ στην Ελλάδα αυτό το έργο!
Με τρομάζει μα και ταρακουνά το μήνυμά του, πως μπορεί στη ζωή μας να κάνουμε μία μόνον λάθος κίνηση, έναν λάθος γάμο εν προκειμένω, και αυτό να διαλύσει τα πάντα χωρίς περιθώριο διορθώσεων: απελπισία, θάνατος μωρού, αλκοολισμός, καρκίνος στο ήπαρ, ανυπόφορο τέλος μέσα στις τύψεις. Πόσο σκληρή ήταν η ζωή.
February 4, 2021
Beautiful writing but grim... I loved the poetic speeches.
December 10, 2012
Our Lady of Sligo is a play by Irish novelist and playwright, Sebastian Barry. As Mai O’Hara lies dying of liver cancer in a Dublin Hospital, she is attended to by the nursing Sister, and visited by her husband Jack, her daughter Joanie, and, in her recollections, her Dada and her friend Maria Sheridan. Mai is fifty-three, and was once a handsome middle-class Galway woman. Through Mai’s conversations and reminiscences the audience learns of the ruin of a promising young life, a career in commerce or teaching that never was, because, against her father’s better judgement, she and handsome young Sligoman Jack O’Hara of the dancehalls became spellbound by each other. Mai’s memories touch on the warm recollections of her father’s loving care, the tragic loss of her sister to childhood illness, her status as the belle of Galway University, marriage to Jack, his absences during the war, his drinking and gambling, the loss of her home and then the loss of her baby son, the love and support of her good friend Maria, through to the extreme of sexual assault and her own alcoholism. Admissions by Jack and accusations by Joanie reveal yet more about the ruin of their lives. Barry manages to convey much emotion in this short play: tenderness, love, optimism, anger, despair, hate and sadness. His imagery is vivid and effective, and his lyrical prose in describing the fonder moments is a foil for some of Mai’s more brutal memories. I wanted to read this play to know more of the families portrayed in Barry’s other excellent novels, The Secret Scripture and The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty. Excellent drama.
January 23, 2011
It took me a lot longer to read this slim volume than I expected. The language is dense and poetic and is set in a hospital room where a woman lies dying of liver cancer. As her family visits, and she dreams of her dead parents, we learn about her life. Her husband is also a character in the other books by Seb Barry.
April 12, 2011
Absolutely beautiful. Very good drama which also managed to contain the lyrical. Simple and yet also full of very delicate yet occasionally brutal memories, which float through the consciousness of all three members of the suffering family. I particularly liked the description of the old father bathing his baby daughter, with her "knuckles smaller than baby snails".
August 15, 2012
Loved it.
June 1, 2014
Exceptional language, not so much plot development.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews