He has long been viewed as an anti-Catholic writer, but closer reading of the work of Irish dramatist Seán O’Casey, who died 50 years ago, reveals a man who reviled clericalism but warmed to the humanity of the Church and the teachings of its founder One of Ireland’s best-known playwrights, Seán O’Casey, died 50 years ago this year. He first gained fame in the 1920s with a brilliant trilogy of plays set in the tenements of Dublin. But his works also proved deeply controversial, both for showing cynicism about Irish nationalism and for apparently mocking the Catholic Church. The Irish Independent, for example, reviewed his work in the 1940s by declaring that “no Irish Catholic could read [it] without feelings of pity and disgust”, and a number o