John Millington Synge was born at 2 Newtown Villas (right), Churchtown in 1871. The first major playwrite to write for an Irish audience about Irish matters he was appointed the literary advisor to the Abbey Theatre at its foundation in 1904. He was later appointed director with W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. He wrote The Aran Islands, Riders to the Sea, the Shadow of the Glen, The Well of the Saints and The Playboy of the Western World the performance of which produced riots.
In 1890 Synge’s mother moved from Rathgar to 31 Crosthwaite Park West, Dún Laoghaire. It was during the time at Crosthwaite Park that Synge’s writing developed and he made his tips to the Aran Islands. Synge’s mother later moved to Glendalough House on Adelaide Road where she reserved a large room for him at the back where he could finish writing The Playboy of the Western World.
W.J. McCormack’s biography of Synge, Fool in the Family, wrote that the move to Dún Laoghaire was a mixed blessing for Synge, ‘From the point of view of a Trinity undergraduate, the notable difference in the Kingstown arrangements was the greater accessibility to a railway service into and out of the city. This made travel to lectures easier, but it also eliminates any possible argument in favour of living in college rooms.’
Edward Stephen, a nephew of Synge, wrote a biography, My Uncle John in which he described the surroundings of Crosthwaite:
This field was fringed with lilac bushes planted at intervals inside a spiked railing like that surrounded the park. The corner nearest to the house, was partly shaded by trees and bushes and there the vegetation grew rank and tangled. It would have been impossible for John to have identified the wild flowers separately from his high window, but he had often peered from the footpath among all the different species of plant that were struggling for existence.’
“The chestnut tree grew opposite Mrs. Synge’s house in the park, the end of which was separated by a narrow road from a small field, where in early summer,dairy cows used to standup to their knees in grass and buttercups.”
J.M. Synge