John B. Keane wrote Sive in 1959. More than sixty years on, it remains one of the most searching and powerful works on the Irish secondary school syllabus – and the Mercier Press Schools Edition is now available in more formats than ever before.

There are plays on the Leaving Certificate syllabus that feel like period pieces – important, well-crafted, and safely distant. Sive is not one of them. John B. Keane’s drama, first staged in Listowel in 1959, has a way of refusing to stay in the past. Every generation of students that encounters it finds something in it that feels uncomfortably immediate.

That is no accident. Keane was not writing a historical curiosity. He was writing about power – who has it, who is denied it, and what happens to those who challenge the arrangements that sustain it. He was writing about silence: the silence of those who know and do nothing, the silence that closes in around a young woman when the people around her have decided that other interests come first. These are not 1950s questions. They are permanent ones.

What Keane Was Really Writing About

Sive is often described as a play about an arranged marriage, and that is accurate as far as it goes. Sive, an orphaned girl living with her uncle Mike and his wife Mena, is earmarked by the matchmaker Thomasheen Seán Rua for marriage to a wealthy old farmer, Seán Dóta. She does not want this. She loves someone else. She is not consulted. The transaction is conducted around her, and her feelings are treated as an inconvenience rather than a veto.

But the arranged marriage is a vehicle for something larger. What Keane is really anatomising is the way a community can organise itself around the erasure of a young woman’s autonomy – and how that erasure requires the active participation of many people who individually might claim good intentions. Mena is not a villain in any simple sense. She is a woman shaped by the same system that is now crushing Sive. Mike is not evil – he is weak, and his weakness is its own kind of complicity. Thomasheen is the operator who knows how to work the gears of social pressure. And Pats Bocock and Carthalawn sing warnings that no one in power wants to hear.

The tragedy of the play is not simply that Sive dies. It is that her death is the logical conclusion of a long series of smaller choices made by people who told themselves they were doing what had to be done. The system does not need monsters. It runs on ordinary people looking away.

Why It Still Matters

The questions at the heart of Sive – who speaks for a young woman when those around her have competing interests, what it takes for a community to stop looking away, what silence costs the person it is directed at – are not questions that have been answered. They surface in every generation, in different forms and different contexts. Students who engage seriously with the play tend to recognise this without being told. Keane wrote for the Ireland he knew, but he was writing about something that outlasted it.

For the Leaving Certificate examiner, this is precisely what gives the play its longevity on the syllabus. Sive rewards close reading – its language, its structure, its use of Pats Bocock and Carthalawn as a kind of Greek chorus standing outside the moral compromises of the household – but it also rewards the kind of thinking that good literature always invites: the application of what is on the page to what is in the world.

Keane understood that complicity is rarely dramatic. It is quiet. It is procedural. It is people deciding, one by one, that someone else’s suffering is not quite their problem.

The Schools Edition

The Mercier Press Schools Edition of Sive contains the complete text of the play alongside editorial apparatus developed specifically for Leaving Certificate students. It includes a full introduction to the play’s context – the Ireland of the 1950s, the matchmaking tradition, the world of rural Kerry that shaped Keane’s imagination – as well as guidance on the major themes, the principal characters, and the dramatic techniques that make the play so powerful.

The Schools Edition is designed to be used in the classroom and at home, by students working independently and by teachers preparing lessons. It does not talk down to its readers. Keane’s play is a serious work of art, and it deserves serious engagement.

New Accessible Formats for Every Student

This year, the Sive Schools Edition is available in four formats, because we believe access to literature should never be a barrier to academic achievement.

• Standard Print: The familiar paperback edition. Available from all good booksellers and school book suppliers across Ireland.
• ePub 3: A fully accessible digital edition compatible with screen readers, text-to-speech software, and all major reading apps and devices.
• Large Print: A dedicated large print edition with 18pt body text, generous line spacing, and high-contrast printing throughout.
• Ukrainian Edition: A fully translated print edition for Ukrainian students now living and studying in Ireland, translated by a professional literary translator.

ePub 3 – what it means for students

About the EPUB 3 accessible digital edition
EPUB 3 is the international standard for accessible digital books – the format used by libraries, educational platforms, and assistive technology providers worldwide. Unlike a fixed PDF, an EPUB 3 file is fully flexible: text reflows to any screen size, and the reader controls font size, spacing, contrast, and background colour.

The Sive Schools Edition EPUB 3 has been built to meet EPUB Accessibility 1.1 specification and includes:

• Full screen reader compatibility – works with JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack, so students who are blind or have low vision can have the entire text read aloud
• Reflowable text – adjusts to any screen without losing structure or formatting
• Semantic navigation – screen readers and reading apps can jump directly between sections, scenes, and chapters
• Dyslexia-friendly display – readers can select their own font (including OpenDyslexic in compatible apps), background colour, line spacing, and margin width
• High-contrast and dark mode support – reducing eye strain during long study sessions
• Fully navigable table of contents – move directly to any part of the text or editorial apparatus

The EPUB 3 edition works with Apple Books, Kobo, Thorium Reader, Adobe Digital Editions, and most school library platforms. For students who receive Leaving Certificate accommodations including reader support or text-to-speech, this edition can be deployed from the outset of study.

Large print edition

About the large print edition

The large print edition is a purpose-built publication, not a scaled-up version of the standard text. It features 18pt body text throughout, 1.5 line spacing, wide margins, high-contrast printing on off-white stock, and lay-flat binding. All editorial content is identical to the standard edition – nothing has been abridged or omitted. Schools wishing to order multiple copies for learning support departments should contact our sales team for institutional pricing.

Ukrainian language edition

Since 2022, thousands of Ukrainian students have enrolled in Irish secondary schools, many of whom are now preparing for State examinations. For students who are still developing English language fluency, engaging with a complex dramatic text like Sive represents a considerable additional challenge. Mercier Press and Literature Ireland are proud to have co-published a Ukrainian language edition of Sive – Сайв – in direct response to that need.

The Ukrainian language edition is a co-publication by Mercier Press and Literature Ireland. It has been translated by Andriy Masliukh (Андрій Маслюх), edited by Kateryna Mikhalitsyna, and typeset by Dmytro Podolyanchuk. It is available in print and contains the complete play text in Ukrainian, enabling students to engage with the play’s meaning and prepare for their Leaving Certificate with confidence. Schools may contact us regarding availability for students in demonstrable financial need.

For Teachers

Teaching Sive well means taking its themes seriously – not as historical curiosities but as live questions about power, agency, and moral responsibility that students are equipped to think about. The play’s enduring presence on the syllabus is a testament to how well Keane constructed it: the language rewards close reading, the characters reward psychological analysis, and the central situation rewards exactly the kind of ethical reflection that good literature is supposed to provoke.

Teacher review copies of all editions are available on request. Contact us

Sive – New Ed with Notes Large Print Edition

Keane, John B.

Large Print Edition: A powerful folk-drama which concerns itself with the attempt of a scheming matchmaker and a bitter woman to sell an innocent young girl to a lecherous old man.

ISBN: 9781806900138

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