Holloway on Synge's Last Days'

HOLLOWAY ON SYNGE'S LAST DAYSI THROUGHOUT MOST OF HIS LIFE J. M. Synge was afflicted with delicate health. His sickly state generated in him an intensified awareness of the irony, the mystery, and the tragedy of existence. Death above all haunted his brooding thoughts to become, as we know, a recurring motif in his writing. So in his poetry, for example, he saw death emerge as his "cruel personal foe" and "chase after him with huge strides leaving in its wake a great desolation." During his youth the more stern aspects of his mother's Evangelical Protestant faith turned him away from religion to assume instead a mask of stoic resignation when dealing with life's enigmas. This attitude apparently served him as a satisfactory way for accepting the human condition, for being reconciled to his enemy, death; it aided him, he tells us, "to put away sorrow like a shoe that is worn and muddy." Synge's recurring periods of ill-health ended with his premature death from cancer, a month before his 38th birthday, on March 24, 1909. While alive, he had seemingly achieved a tolerably fatalistic relationship for himself with "his cruel enemy." But regarding his ultimate direct confrontation with death one's curiosity is aroused. Did he continue to rely upon his stoical outlook, or did it crumble before the void? Did he, on the other hand, revert for consolation during his final agonizing hours of pain to the religious values of his mother? The daily personal memoirs of the Dublin theatrical diarist, Joseph Holloway (1861-1944), throw helpful new light on these matters. His reminiscences, moreover, include his account of Synge's funeral, which he attended. Since Yeats's essay, "The Death of Synge,"2 also briefly covers in diary form similar biographical background, Holloway 's diary-entries thus offer as well a source of reference for interpreting or commenting on some of Yeats's kindred recollections. At the outset of the modern Irish Literary Revival, Holloway, prompted by a deep love of the theater and his gregarious instincts, assumed the role of Pepys for this renaissance. His restless wander1 My source is the Holloway Diaries. I have received from the trustees of the National Library in Dublin permission to edit these diaries. 2 Dramatis Personae (New York, 1936), pp. 125-154. Subsequent footnote references to Yeats's essay will be quoted from this source. 126 1963 HOLLOWAY ON SYNGE'S LAST DAYS 127 ings through Dublin seeking from his friends and numerous acquaintances material for his diaries, which he wrote for 50 years, made him one of that city's best known characters. As a practicing architect in Dublin, he was engaged by Miss Horniman, the generous English patron of Irish drama, to design what became the famous Abbey Theatre. This building he regarded as his private domain, his second home. Nearly every day he roamed there at will, back stage, out front, in and out of its dressing rooms and administrative offices, gathering grist for his mill from actors, writers, directors, and staff. Among Holloway's best sources of material for his daily records were people with similar interests, such as his close friends, W. J. Lawrence, noted historian of the Elizabethan stage, D. J. O'Donoghue, editor and literary associate of Yeats in London and Joyce in Dublin, and W. A. Henderson, manager of the Abbey during its formative years. Early in the first week of March, 1909, Henderson remarked to Holloway that Synge's health had become so bad he was unable to put the finishing touches to Deirdre despite his prompting. Furthermore, Synge's operation ten months earlier at the Elpis, a private nursing home in Dublin, had proven unsuccessful, although Synge had previously believed himself cured. The following week, on March 9, Henderson divulged to the diarist, who was concerned about the dramatist's welfare, that Synge had just returned to the Elpis and that "he did not wish it to be known he was back again for treatment." One of the nurses at the Elpis was a friend of the diarist, and from her on one of his courtesy visits to Synge at the home, he regretfully...