MERCIER PRESS
3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd
Blackrock, Cork, Ireland.
www.mercierpress.ie
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Original three act version first published 1959
This two act version first published 1986
© The Estate of John B. Keane, 2011
© Notes and Introduction: Joanna Keane O’Flynn, 2011
ISBN: 978 1 85635 651 0
Epub ISBN: 978 1 78117 017 5
Mobi ISBN: 978 1 78117 016 8
Sive is a copyright play and may not be performed without a licence. Application for a licence for amateur performances must be made in advance to Mercier Press Ltd, Unit 3b, Oak House, Bessboro Road, Blackrock, Cork. Terms for professional performances may be had from JBK Occasions, 37 William Street, Listowel, Co. Kerry.
| NANNA GLAVIN | An old woman (mother of Mike Glavin and grandmother of Sive) |
| MENA GLAVIN | Mike Glavin’s wife |
| SIVE | The illegitimate granddaughter of Nanna Glavin |
| THOMASHEEN SEÁN RUA | A matchmaker |
| MIKE GLAVIN | The man of the house (husband of Mena Glavin, son of Nanna Glavin) |
| LIAM SCUAB | A carpenter, Sive’s sweetheart |
| SEÁN DÓTA | An old farmer, suitor for the hand of Sive |
| PATS BOCOCK | A travelling tinker-man |
| CARTHALAWN | His musical son |
The action of the play takes place in the kitchen of Glavin’s small farmhouse in a remote mountainy part of southern Ireland.
My parents, John B. Keane and Mary O’Connor married on 5 January 1955. They bought ‘The Greyhound Bar’ on 37 William Street, Listowel in the same year. One afternoon, while my father was working behind the counter, a haggard old man called in for a drink. He announced to all and sundry that a match had been arranged for him and that he would be getting married in the not too distant future. He requested that my unsuspecting father accompany him to a nearby jewellery shop to help him purchase a ring for his intended bride to be. My father visited the shop with the old man and thought no more about the encounter until months later. To his dismay, he heard from a friend that the aged man had married a girl who was too young for him. He also discovered that the young girl was deeply unhappy and ended up institutionalised after a nervous breakdown. This experience troubled my father for a long time after. The unfortunate girl’s painful experience provided him with the material to write Sive.
My father had been experimenting with words since he was twelve. He had moderate success with articles published in The Evening Press and Ireland’s Own and a radio play produced on RTÉ Radio. However, having attended Listowel Drama Group’s award-winning production of All Souls Night by Joseph Tomelty with my mother in Listowel, John B. was stimulated to write Sive. ‘When I came home that night I was impatient and full of ideas. I sent Mary to bed and filled a pint. I sat by the fire for a while and after a quarter of an hour I reached for my copy-book and pencil. I started to write and six hours later, or precisely at 6.30 a.m., I had written the first scene of Sive’ [Self Portrait, 1966]. Within two weeks he had written the first draft of Sive and after much revision and editing, he submitted it to The Abbey Theatre, but was disappointed to have the play returned by post five weeks later. Rejected by The Abbey Theatre, Listowel Drama Group championed my father and premiered Sive on 2 February 1959 in Walsh’s Ballroom, Listowel.
The play went on to win the All-Ireland Amateur Drama Final in Athlone in 1959. In the same year, the Abbey Theatre invited Listowel Drama Group to perform Sive for one week, which they did to popular acclaim.
The popularity of Sive established John B. as a writer and gave him the appetite to write several plays, novels, short stories and poems.
‘I am a kind of writer. Nobody knows what kind of writer I am least of all myself. My ambition is that people will say some time “He was a kind of writer. He said things a different way from others” [Self Portrait, 1966].’
The rapturous rat-a-tat-tat of his typewriter will stay with me forever.
JOANNA KEANE O’FLYNN