A Reader's Guide to Modern Irish Drama provides an introduction to one of the great dramatic and theatrical traditions of Western culture. Filling a pressing need in the literature, this book includes information on the most recent and youngest playwrights working today at the Abbey, Druid, and Lyric Theatres. Most significantly, Sternlicht discusses the important plays of all the playwrights included and the major themes of modern Irish drama: the struggle for independence, the cruelty of poverty, the pains of emigration and exile, the decline of the Anglo-Irish ascendency, the power of religion, the longing for land, and the familial and gender conflicts of a people in post-colonial transition.