The Countess Cathleen

Set in a bleak, famine‑stricken Irish countryside, the drama opens in a modest cottage where Mary, her son Teig, and the weary peasant Shemus Rua scrape together what little they have. Their dialogue is haunted by whispered omens—a strange bird with a human face, a mute figure in the moonlit graveyard, and the ever‑present specter of hunger. As they struggle to keep the hearth alive, the thin line between the natural and the supernatural begins to blur.

Into this desperate world steps the enigmatic Countess Cathleen, accompanied by her foster‑mother Oona and the poet Aleel. She speaks of a hidden castle garden where abundance might still exist, yet her arrival also awakens two sinister merchants who are not what they seem. Listeners are drawn into a timeless tale of generosity versus greed, where the choices of ordinary folk echo through mythic realms.