It gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving away from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has served primitive races since men first went to sea.

Not even the members of his own family were close enough to understand him. The comedy centers on the story of apparent patricide and attracted a wide hostile reaction from the Irish public.

He is best known for his play The Playboy of the Western World which caused riots in Dublin during its opening run at the Abbey Theatre. Synge suffered from Hodgkin's disease a form of cancer at the time untreatable.