ABSTRACT
In 1926 the audience in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin tried to storm the stage itself. On this occasion the work which produced such hostility was Seán O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars. By 1926 the Abbey was the national theatre of a new country, the Irish Free State. The establishment of the Irish Free State was opposed by many nationalist Republicans who did not accept partition. The Abbey's failure to close in disapproval of the treaty in 1921 now led to threats from some Republicans, and the theatre remained under armed guard for some time afterwards. In Hugh Hunt's 1979 history of the Abbey the 1926 riot, in contrast to that of 1907, is presented as a comic incident told through a collage of voices. There is a depressing stereotyping of Irish women either as virtuous paragons or hysterical termagants in narratives of the riot.
