Riders to the Sea was written during what critics refer to as the Irish Literary Renaissance, a period that lasted roughly from 1885 to the 1920s (or according to some, until the eve of World War II). The main figures include Synge, William Butler Yeats, and Sean O’Casey. Almost all were members of the upper class and knew the forms of English verse and lyric poetry well.
The Renaissance came about during a time of renewed Irish identity and nationhood. This was associated with the restoration attempts of the Gaelic language (carried out by the Gaelic League, which was founded in 1893) as well as the movement to restore Home Rule and independence from England. Writers and scholars wanted to create work that was uniquely Irish; thus, they often turned to Irish myths, legends, and folktales for inspiration.
One of the earliest works of the Renaissance was Standish O’Grady’s two-volume history of the island, The Heroic Period. Yeats, though, is perhaps the best known of the movement's writers and poets, and his Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry published in 1888 was extremely influential. In reference to his volume The Celtic Twilight, he said his goal was to “show in a vision something of the face of Ireland to any of my own people who would look where I bid them.” He established the Irish Literary Society in London in 1892 and the National Literary Society in Dublin the same year.
In 1894 Thomas Finlay founded the New Ireland Review, a literary magazine to which many of these luminaries contributed. Douglas Hyde, a linguist and academic, as well as T.W. Rolleston and Charles Gavan Duffy, were editors of the New Irish Library, which published works of Irish history and literature.
Mysticism pervaded some of the work of this movement, and editor/critic/writer/painter George Russell was one of its most prominent stylists. Occasionally politics played a central role as well, with poets like Patrick Henry Perse and Thomas MacDonagh contributing not only to the country’s body of verse but also to the Irish Republican movement.
Synge, Yeats, and Lady Isabella Gregory, a dramatist and folklorist, formed the Abbey Theatre in Dublin; this became well known for performing Irish repertory classics and for promoting and staging new works. The Irish Literary Theatre, founded by Yeats, Gregory, and Edward Martyn, performed Irish works by Irish authors in Dublin.
