John Millington Synge (1871-1909) is widely regarded as the greatest ever Irish dramatist. Born in Dublin in 1871, he trained first as a musician and composer, but after a meeting with W. B. Yeats in Paris, came to focus on literature, giving voice for the first time to those communities on the West Coast of Ireland. Capturing their dialect and energising their stories, the lives of the people of Connemara, and the Aran Islands were brought to life through his six great plays: In The Shadow of the Glen (1903), Riders to the Sea (1904), The Well of the Saints (1905), The Playboy of the Western World (1907), The Tinkers' Wedding (1908), and his unfinished mythological drama Deirdre of the Sorrows (performed posthumously in 1910); as well as his travel journal of his time off the coast of Ireland entitled simply The Aran Islands (1907). <p/>A strong advocate and contributor to the nascent Abbey Theatre, Synge, along with Lady Gregory and W. B. Yeats, was its leading light. His premature death from Hodgkin's disease left the Irish theatre bereft of its first great genius.
