Irish Women between Emigration and Return in Brian Friel's The Loves of Cass McGuire.

This article focuses on Irish playwright Brian Friel‘s play TheLoves of Cass McGuire (first produced in 1966), the theory of emigration and thesuffering of emigrants torn between the hope of living a new life and the desireto return home and filled with the fear that they can nolonger live as before. The play depicts the life of an elderly Irish womanwho left Ireland and emigrated to America when she was young. It shows howher return home ruins her expectations of what it might be like living in Irelandagain, alienating her so that she retreats to her own world of fantasy and illusionas a way of escaping bitter reality. The article engages with the psychologicalimpact of returning home, arguing that Friel was ahead of his time in covering theissue.