‘A first-rate piece of writing… the simplicity and innocent beauty of the language give it depth and elegiac quality’ Independent

‘The play, based on Barry’s own great-great-grandmother, shows he has the capacity to generate strong emotion and to discover in his ancestors a metaphor for Irish history… Barry uses Lizzie’s dilemma to explore the economic decay of the 1890s landowning class and the whaleboned snobberies of rural Ireland… Barry’s poetic gift is constantly in evidence.’ Guardian