1984: Antigon-izing the Irish stage

The paper explores three versions of Antigone staged in Ireland in 1984: Antigone: The Riot Act by Tom Paulin; Antigone: a version by Brendan Kennelly and Antigone by Carl Aidan Mathews. Rewriting, adapting or translating classics can represent a counterdiscoursive strategy used in crucial moment of a country’s history. In the three Irish plays Antigone’s persona springs out of the confrontation/opposition with both Creon (the institutional opponent) and Ismene (a sort of Antigone’s double). In the framework of Ireland as a postcolonial context, the paper investigates how this confrontation/opposition fits in Irish politics in the 80s