Since the 1960s, Sean O’Casey’s own life has repeatedly been a source of fascination for dramatists, and there have been a number of dramatic reconstructions of his life, often based on his own autobiographical writings. The best-known of these dramatisations was the 1965 MGM film, Young Cassidy, directed by John Ford and Jack Cardiff. This chapter examines this Hollywood version of O’Casey’s life and discusses a number of alternative biographical dramatisations. These dramatisations include the popular ABC television series Young Indiana Jones in 1992; Hal Prince’s 1992 play about O’Casey’s life, Grandchild of Kings; and Colm Tóibín’s 2004 play Beauty in a Broken Place (2004).

O’Casey had originally thought about writing a book about his life experiences as early as August 1926. In 1938 he completed the first volume, but the project continued to balloon, such that O’Casey eventually composed his autobiographies over the course of two decades, publishing six volumes between 1939 and 1954. This chapter puts the autobiographies in the perspective of working-class self-representation in Ireland during the twentieth century, interrogates the sense of self that can be found in the books, examines the response to the autobiographies in Ireland and beyond, and assesses the worth of O’Casey’s autobiographical writings.