The silence of Barbara Synge

"The family of playwright J.M. Synge (1871-1909) had a long pedigree in Ireland, which has never been fully examined until now. Taking the apparent death of Mrs. John Hatch (nee Synge) in 1767 as a starting point, Bill Mc Cormack explores the many diverse strands of two family histories in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Ireland." "The Silence of Barbara Synge is a unique work of cultural enquiry, combining archival research, literary criticism and local history. The result is a model for a new kind of literary-historical project, neither biography or criticism, nor literary history, but a synthesis of all three."

"Crucial events in the family's past are considered in the light of their influence on J.M. Synge's writing, from a suicide in 1769 which is echoed in one of his early plays, to the disastrous consequences of the Great Famine, which impacted upon Synge's composition of The Playboy of the Western World (1907)." "Mc Cormacks brings to life some colourful characters amonst the Synge ancestors, such as sometime MP Johan Hatch, and John 'Pestalozzi' Synge, whose religious and educational concerns seem to act as expiation of the family's earlier shortcomings and anxieties." "This volume provides a companion to Fool of the Family: A Life of J.M. Synge, W.J. Mc Cormack's acclaimed biography of Synge."--Jacket.