Hall of Healing (1951): a Therapeutic Diversion

Abstract

Hall of Healing is the most tragicomic of O’Casey’s one-act diversions, even though the dramatist labels it ‘A Sincerious Farce in One Scene’. It is based on memories of reprehensible medical conditions operating at the turn of the century, and afterwards, among dispensaries of the poor and the notorious Red ticket system in Ireland — a method of communication between patient and doctor, and one of many evils condemned by Larkin, Connolly and others alike — that exacerbated such conditions. Some of these memories, too, affecting the playwright’s early childhood, are recounted in his first autobiographical book (especially, in the Chapter, ‘The Hill of Healing’), I Knock at the Door.