Although he was not well known outside of Ireland, Irish playwright George Shiels contributed regularly to Dublin's Abbey Theatre for nearly three decades. In 1938 his friend playwright T. C. Murray told an audience at the Abbey Theatre festival that "After O'Casey" Shiels was "our most popular playwright." Noted for his comedies, Shiels presented amusing characters and scenes from everyday Irish life without patronizing either. He instinctively understood and respected the differences between realistic social criticism and satire and between comedy and farce. His canon provides an authentic picture of Irish life in the first half of this century.

Shiels was born in Ballymoney, county Antrim, to Robert and Eileen MacSweeney Shiels. His formal education ended in primary school, but he continued to educate himself, reading the works of such writers as Dickens and Mark Twain as well as Boswell's Life of Johnson and Pope's essays. When he was...