George Bernard Shaw has always been regarded as a political provocateur and socialist with ideas that reflected a complicated public philosophy. Scholarship abounds on Shaw’s politics, but Nelson Ritschel’s compelling study is the first to explore how Shaw’s presence in Irish radical debate manifested itself not only through his direct contributions but also through the way he and his efforts were engaged by others--most notably by the socially liberal dramatist J. M. Synge and the socialist agitator James Connolly.

Looking closely at such works as In the Shadow of the Glen, John Bull’s Other Island, Playboy of the Western World, and O’Flaherty, V.C. , Ritschel opens an important door on the hidden dialogue between these men. The result is a gripping, even suspenseful, narrative of the intellectual march to the Easter Uprising of 1916.