''O'Flaherty V.C., A Recruiting Pamphlet'' (1915) is a comic one-act play written during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
by
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
. The plot is about an Irish soldier in the British army returning home after winning the
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...
. The play was written at a time when the British government was promoting recruitment in Ireland, while many
Irish republicans
Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
The developm ...
expressed opposition to fighting in the war.
Characters
* Dennis O'Flaherty, Irish soldier
* Teresa Driscoll, his girlfriend
* Mrs O'Flaherty, his mother
* General Sir Pearce Madigan, his commanding officer
Preface
In the preface Shaw argues that most soldiers do not enlist for patriotic reasons, but through a desire for adventure, or to get away from a restricted life. This is especially true of the Irish, since an Irishman's hopes and opportunities depend on "getting out of Ireland". He adds that recruitment was nevertheless at a low ebb in 1915, as it had been "badly bungled... The Irish were for the most part Roman Catholics and loyal Irishmen, which means that from the English point of view they were heretics and rebels." Shaw said that he gave his character a self-serving girlfriend and a harridan of a mother ("a
Volumnia
Volumnia is a character in William Shakespeare's play ''Coriolanus'', the mother of Caius Martius Coriolanus. She plays a large role in Coriolanus' life, encouraging him in his military success and urging him to seek political office. When th ...
of the potato-patch") in order to emphasise the kind of poverty and poor quality of life from which poor youths fled to join up.
Plot
Dennis O'Flaherty, winner of the Victoria Cross for his outstanding bravery, has returned home to his local village to take part in a recruitment campaign. In conversation with General Pearce Madigan, the local squire, O'Flaherty admits that he had not told his Fenian mother that he would be fighting for the British side in the war, not against it. Madigan says he must explain to her why the war is being fought, and that even Republicans should help in the struggle against German oppression. O'Flaherty says he's no idea why the war is being fought, he just joined up to get away from home, but one thing he's become convinced of is that patriotism is part of the problem: "You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race".
His mother appears, incensed to discover he's being fighting for the British. But she's even more horrified when Dennis' girlfriend, Teresa, arrives, expecting that the V.C. comes with a large payout in cash. She's dismayed to learn that the government may only give him a pension if he is wounded first. Still, she thinks it will be worth it, even if he does have to be badly wounded. Dennis says he's sick of life in provincial Ireland. Since he's experienced France, he never wants to come back. He hopes he can get a French wife. Teresa is outraged. When Mrs O'Flaherty discovers that her son gave Teresa a valuable gold watch, she launches into a tirade and the two women berate each other mercilessly. O'Flaherty says he can't wait to get back to the peace and quiet of the trenches. General Madigan sympathises, commenting, "Do you think that we should have got an army without conscription if domestic life had been as happy as people say it is?"
Context and productions
O'Flaherty's exploits in the war and role in recruiting drives are based on those of Irish Catholic Victoria Cross winner
Michael John O'Leary
Major (United Kingdom), Major Michael John O'Leary Victoria Cross, VC (29 September 1890 – 2 August 1961) was an Irish soldier and police officer who was a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the most prestigious award for gallantry in the ...
.
[Batchelor, Peter F. & Matson, Christopher (1997). ''VCs of the First World War – The Western Front 1915''. Sutton Publishing, pp. 1–4.] In February 1915 O'Leary had captured two German barricades, killing the gun crew of the first and capturing the second after running out of ammunition. O'Leary had been given a grand reception attended by thousands of Londoners in Hyde Park on 10 July 1915. Recruitment was a highly divisive subject in Ireland at the time. O'Leary was also greeted by cheering crowds in his home town of Macroom, but he was jeered by
Ulster Volunteers
The Ulster Volunteers was an Irish unionist, loyalist paramilitary organisation founded in 1912 to block domestic self-government ("Home Rule") for Ireland, which was then part of the United Kingdom. The Ulster Volunteers were based in the ...
at a recruitment drive in Ballaghaderrin during the autumn of 1915. This treatment caused such a scandal that it was raised in the
Houses of Parliament
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north bank ...
in December.
[ Like O'Flaherty's mother, O'Leary's father was a fervent Irish nationalist.
The play was intended for the ]Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the pu ...
in Dublin, which was suffering financially in the war, but the play's anti-war message led to a wartime ban on performance by the military authorities in Ireland.[Broad, Violet & Broad C. Lewis, ''Dictionary to the Plays and Novels of Bernard Shaw'', A. & C. Black, London, 1929, p. 69.] Shaw later wrote to Yeats that he was not sure that the play would work there anyway, and that St John Ervine
St John Greer Ervine (28 December 1883 – 24 January 1971) was an Irish biographer, novelist, critic, dramatist, and theatre manager. He was the most prominent Ulster writer of the early twentieth century and a major Irish dramatist whose work in ...
, who was to have played the lead role, was not suited to the part. The first production was an amateur performance put on by officers of the Royal Flying Corps
"Through Adversity to the Stars"
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in Belgium.[ The first professional production was by the ]Incorporated Stage Society
The Incorporated Stage Society, commonly known as the Stage Society, was an English theatre society with limited membership which mounted private Sunday performances of new and experimental plays, mainly at the Royal Court Theatre (whose Vedrenne- ...
at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith
The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on Lyric Square, off King Street, Hammersmith, London. , 20 December 1920. It was paired with H. O. Meredith's ''Forerunners''. On 20 November (what year? can't be 1920) Shaw himself gave a radio broadcast version of the play.[Henderson, Archibald, ''George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century'', Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1956, p. 572]
Critical views
Beatrice Webb
Martha Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, (née Potter; 22 January 1858 – 30 April 1943) was an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer. It was Webb who coined the term ''collective bargaining''. She ...
wrote in her diary that "O'Flaherty V.C. is a brilliant but serious piece of work—a jewel of a one-act play." Stephen Murray in ''English War Plays of the First World War'', says that "Shaw tackles the issues of the war in a juxtaposition of serious and inconsequential subject-matter and tones which in many ways do take away from the important points he wishes to disclose. These fragment the unity of theme and mood."[Murray, Stephen, ''English War Plays of the First World War''] Shaw's friend Archibald Henderson
Archibald Henderson (January 21, 1783 – January 6, 1859) was the longest-serving Commandant of the Marine Corps, serving from 1820 to 1859. His name is learned by all recruits at Marine recruit training (Boot Camp) as the "Grand old man of th ...
says that "The Irish peasants are portrayed as hopelessly insular and sadly benighted. Their prejudice against the British is bitter and incorrigible."[ Bernard Dukore notes that the play "vividly contrasts as background the poverty of the lower-class Irish with the prosperity of the landed Anglo-Irish ascendancy. Because O'Flaherty's mother nursed the son of Sir Pearce, she had to bring up her own daughter on the bottle. When Sir Pearce mentions a citizen's obligation to king and country, O'Flaherty comments, 'Well, sir, to you that have an estate in it, it would feel like your country. But the devil a ]perch
Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Percif ...
of it ever I owned.'"[Bernard F. Dukore, ''Bernard Shaw, Playwright: Aspects of Shavian Drama'', University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO., 1973, p. 264.]
References
External links
Text at Project Gutenberg
'The Censorship of "O'Flaherty V.C."', SHAW: the Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies
{{George Bernard Shaw
1915 plays
Plays by George Bernard Shaw
Plays about World War I
Plays set in Ireland
Censorship in the arts
Anti-war plays
Theatre controversies