Sive

By John B. Keane

Ireland’s best-loved playwright, poet and author John B. Keane was born in Listowel, Co. Kerry in 1928 and died there on 30 May, 2002. In all he wrote 19 plays and 32 works of prose and poetry. Sive, Keane’s first and arguably greatest play, is an established classic. Set in a remote area of North Kerry, the play tells the story of the promise in marriage, of the young and beautiful Sive to an old man.

Druid presents a major new production of John B. Keane's most popular play, Sive.

Nana and Mena bicker and provoke one another in the small smoky cottage where they live with Sive and Mena’s husband, Mike. While Nana dotes on her orphaned granddaughter, Sive, Mena plots to marry the young girl off to an old local farmer for the promise of land and a chance to escape from poverty.

Written in 1959, Sive has become an Irish classic and one of the nation's best loved plays. It is a story about a battle of generations, a country in flux, exploitation, greed, love and tragedy all told with John B's lyrical dialogue and great Irish humour.