Character guide

Nora Burke

major

Also known as Nora, Nora Angrily, Nora Uah

Nora keeps a wake-house at the head of a long glen, tending a shrouded body and a stocking of money while the wind cries outside. Married to a man she calls queer and cold, she has grown used to being lonesome and now measures her life against the young herd Micheal Dara, who whistles for her at night. Her quiet errand in the dark — fetching a man to carry news of a death — sets the play's whole machinery of deception and desire in motion.

Sarah Casey

major

Also known as Sarah, Sarah Angrily

Sarah Casey, the self-styled Beauty of Ballinacree, sits by a stick fire at a chapel gate while Michael Byrne files at a tin ring and grumbles that she is dragging him to the priest. She wants a decent marriage to stop the dirty names and to hold her to a man she could leave for Jaunting Jim and the rich tinkers of Tibradden. Her stubborn bargain — ten shillings in gold and a gallon can for the sacrament — drives the play's early comedy and its ache.

Mary Byrne

supporting

Also known as Mary, Mary Calling, old Mary

Mary Byrne arrives at the roadside camp with porter and opinions, mocking Michael for being a black born fool to marry a woman who would wander anyway. She needles Sarah with hard-won talk of grand ladies in silk who suffer the same torments, then grows uneasy when she hears the gold and the tin can are being handed over. Her derision and dread unsettle the wedding bargain just as it is being struck.

Micheal Dara

supporting

Also known as Micheal, Micheal Considering

Micheal Dara is the young man the Tramp passes on the road, driving mountain ewes and heading toward the cottage beyond the sea. He is the one Nora sends for in the dark, the one who walks round to see what must be done and who will carry word down the glen that Dan Burke is dead. His presence shadows the wake from the first knock at the door, making the old husband's jealousy and the wife's restlessness converge.

Tramp

supporting

Also known as Tramp Trembling, Tramp Standing, Tramp Filling, The Tramp, Tramp Drinking, Tramp Speaking

The Tramp walks to Brittas from the Aughrim fair and knocks at the last cottage in the glen, hoping for milk and a corner to sleep. He takes the needle Nora gives him and stitches his coat while murmuring the De Profundis, uneasy at the queer look on the shrouded body. When the sheet moves and Dan Burke sits up demanding whisky, the Tramp becomes the play's unwilling witness and the audience's eyes.

Dan Burke

supporting

Also known as Dan, Dan It, Daniel Burke

Dan Burke is the body under the sheet in the glen cottage, an old man who cursed his wife that morning and forbade her to touch him when he died. He keeps a black stick in the cupboard for a bad wife, and he lies still through the Tramp's prayers until a whistle outside tells him Nora has gone. His feigned death is the trap at the center of the play, turning a lonely wake into a test of who will leave and who will stay.

Cathleen

supporting

Also known as Cathleen Crying, Cathleen Wait

Cathleen runs the household's small logistics — rope, bread, pig, kelp — while her mother Maurya keens and her brother Bartley readies the red mare for the Galway fair. She is caught between practical defiance and inherited dread, scolding Maurya for an unlucky word even as she herself scans the white rocks for the tide. Her briskness keeps the cottage moving and makes the play's gathering sorrow feel earned rather than merely announced.

Michael Byrne

minor

Also known as Michael, Michael Grimly, Michael Who

A tinker man involved in the wedding preparations.

Maurya

major

Also known as Maurya Continuing

Maurya sits at the fire raking turf and prophesying doom while her son Bartley saddles a horse for the fair and her daughters hide a bundle from her. Her grief is not decorative — it is a lived arithmetic of drowned men, and it makes her both unbearable and unbearably right. She is the play's conscience and its wound, the voice that names what everyone else is too busy surviving to say.

Bartley

supporting

Bartley moves through the cottage issuing small commands — sell the pig, gather kelp, watch the sheep — because the house now runs on one man's labor and he knows it. He is neither cruel nor heedless, only a young man doing the next necessary thing, which is precisely what makes his mother's lament so hard to answer. His brisk departure, halter in hand, sets the play's clock ticking.

Priest

minor

Also known as the Priest, The Priest, Priest The Lord, The young priest, the young priest

A local priest who appears briefly in the plays.

Mike Dara

minor

Also known as Michael

A young man mentioned in the tinker wedding play.

Young Jaunting Jim

minor

Also known as Jaunting Jim, Jim

A jaunting car driver mentioned in passing.

Peggy Cavanagh

minor

An old woman mentioned as having died alone.

Colum Shawn

minor

Also known as Shawn, Colum

A minor character mentioned in the glen play.

Sheamus

minor

A minor character referenced in the tinker play.

Biddy Flynn

minor

A woman who helped lay out a dead body.

Larry

minor

A minor character mentioned in the tinker play.