Uploaded January 2009 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Singer: Áine Bean Uí Loithe. The story is centered on a young eighteen year old girl called Sive who is illegitimate. She lives with her uncle Mike, his wife Mena and Nanna who is Mikes mother. A local matchmaker Thomasheen Sean Rua decides that Sive should marry an old man called Sean Dota. Sean is rich but old and haggard. Thamasheen convinces Mike and Mena to organize the marriage of Sive to Sean Dota. They will receive a sum of two hundred pounds as soon as she marries him.
Sive however is in love with a young man by the name of Liam Scuab. Liam however is not suitable as he is related to the man who abandoned Sives mother when he realized that she was pregnant. Mike refuses permission for Liam to marry Sive on this account.
Sive is distraught but is forced to do the will of her uncle and his wife. Nanna does not approve and would prefer her to marry Liam. Two local tinkers by the name of Pats and his son Carthalawn connive together and decide to help her escape from Sean Dota and marry Liam. The plot fails however as Thomasheen discovers the letter and destroys it. On the night before her marriage Sive disappears and shortly afterwards her body is discovered in a bog hole. Liam finds the body and carries it in to the house announcing to Mena and her husband that they are responsible for her death. As Liam cries over the dead body Sean Dota and Thomasheen both leave the room. The play concludes with Pats and his son singing about a maiden who was drowned as she would not be a bride.
The background of this play is Ireland in the fifties. It is a time of harsh poverty and people are measured in terms of the land and the crops they possess. There are many references to the fear of the poorhouse and the rough reality of poverty. Marriage and love are both seen in pragmatic terms in relation to the amount of possessions a person has. It is a time when matchmakers were popular and local trades flourished. The land is an important feature of the play.
In this play love and marriage are treated very negatively. Thomasheen who is supposed to be the local matchmaker and bring together people who love one another in marriage queries cynically to Mena what business have the likes of us with love? The whole notion of love and marriage becomes synonymous with selfishness and self-interest. Mena and Thoasheen are seen as two despicable characters who have no interest in anything else but serving their own interests and pockets. Both are governed by selfishness and see Sives marriage to Sean Dota in terms of monetary interests and particularly monetary interest which will benefit themselves.
Women are shown to be strong characters but they are also shown in a negative light throughout the story. Both Mena and Nanna fight and insult one another in an abusive manner and both are seen to be embittered people in different ways. Nanna despises the fact that Mena has no children, while Mena sees the presence of Nanna in the house as a continuous source of irritation. Sive on the other hand is seen as a victim of the selfishness and self-interest of the people who should be helping her in life. At the conclusion in her tragic death we see the destruction of a beautiful young woman through the greed of other people.
Singer: Áine Bean Uí Loithe. The story is centered on a young eighteen year old girl called Sive who is illegitimate. She lives with her uncle Mike, his wife Mena and Nanna who is Mikes mother. A local matchmaker Thomasheen Sean Rua decides that Sive should marry an old man called Sean Dota. Sean is rich but old and haggard. Thamasheen convinces Mike and Mena to organize the marriage of Sive to Sean Dota. They will receive a sum of two hundred pounds as soon as she marries him.
Sive however is in love with a young man by the name of Liam Scuab. Liam however is not suitable as he is related to the man who abandoned Sives mother when he realized that she was pregnant. Mike refuses permission for Liam to marry Sive on this account.
Sive is distraught but is forced to do the will of her uncle and his wife. Nanna does not approve and would prefer her to marry Liam. Two local tinkers by the name of Pats and his son Carthalawn connive together and decide to help her escape from Sean Dota and marry Liam. The plot fails however as Thomasheen discovers the letter and destroys it. On the night before her marriage Sive disappears and shortly afterwards her body is discovered in a bog hole. Liam finds the body and carries it in to the house announcing to Mena and her husband that they are responsible for her death. As Liam cries over the dead body Sean Dota and Thomasheen both leave the room. The play concludes with Pats and his son singing about a maiden who was drowned as she would not be a bride.
The background of this play is Ireland in the fifties. It is a time of harsh poverty and people are measured in terms of the land and the crops they possess. There are many references to the fear of the poorhouse and the rough reality of poverty. Marriage and love are both seen in pragmatic terms in relation to the amount of possessions a person has. It is a time when matchmakers were popular and local trades flourished. The land is an important feature of the play.
In this play love and marriage are treated very negatively. Thomasheen who is supposed to be the local matchmaker and bring together people who love one another in marriage queries cynically to Mena what business have the likes of us with love? The whole notion of love and marriage becomes synonymous with selfishness and self-interest. Mena and Thoasheen are seen as two despicable characters who have no interest in anything else but serving their own interests and pockets. Both are governed by selfishness and see Sives marriage to Sean Dota in terms of monetary interests and particularly monetary interest which will benefit themselves.
Women are shown to be strong characters but they are also shown in a negative light throughout the story. Both Mena and Nanna fight and insult one another in an abusive manner and both are seen to be embittered people in different ways. Nanna despises the fact that Mena has no children, while Mena sees the presence of Nanna in the house as a continuous source of irritation. Sive on the other hand is seen as a victim of the selfishness and self-interest of the people who should be helping her in life. At the conclusion in her tragic death we see the destruction of a beautiful young woman through the greed of other people.
