Plunkett’s play 'The Risen People' returns to the Abbey Theatre

In honour of the centenary of the 1913 Lockout, the Abbey Theatre is closing out the year with a rare revival of James Plunkett’s play The Risen People.

The Lockout is an infamous event in modern Irish history, a high-stakes dispute waged between Jim Larkin’s union movement and the industrialists of the day. Littered with brutal incidents, it saw 20,000 workers effectively starved into submission by employers who, with the authorities on their side, blackballed them out of work.

First produced at the Abbey in 1958, Plunkett’s play offers a snapshot of life in a Dublin tenement as the Lockout rages. The play would later provide Plunkett with the raw material for his iconic historical novel, Strumpet City.