Louis D'Alton
Louis D'Alton was an Irish playwright who gained prominence during World War II, a time when Ireland maintained a position of neutrality and relative isolation from Europe. Born to Charles D'Alton, a provincial actor and theater manager, he spent his early years immersed in the theatrical world, which informed much of his later work. D'Alton began his career by working in Ireland's civil service before transitioning to a life in the arts as both a cartoonist and playwright. His first novel, *Death Is so Fair*, published in 1936, addressed the Anglo-Irish disputes of the early 20th century.
Among his notable contributions to theater was *The Man in the Cloak*, staged at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1937, which portrayed the struggles of the 19th-century poet James Clarence Mangan. D'Alton also directed his own plays at the Abbey Theatre, notably *To-Morrow Never Comes*. His breakthrough commercial success came with *The Money Doesn't Matter* in 1941, a play that explored themes of ambition and familial discord through the lens of Irish wit. D'Alton's works often reflected the complexities of rural Irish life, though he struggled to resolve the dramatic tensions inherent in his narratives. He passed away in 1951, leaving behind a legacy that included several posthumously produced plays.
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Subject Terms
Louis D'Alton
Playwright
- Born: May 24, 1900
- Birthplace: Dublin, Ireland
- Died: June 16, 1951
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Louis D’Alton flourished as a playwright in Ireland during World War II, when his homeland remained neutral and somewhat isolated from the rest of Europe. The son of Charles D’Alton, a provincial actor and theater manager, D’Alton grew up in the theater, traveling with his father’s touring company. D’Alton recounts these experiences in his second novel,Rags and Sticks.
When he was sixteen, D’Alton worked in Ireland’s civil service for two years, then quit to study art and work as a cartoonist. Soon he formed his own theater company. In 1936, he published his first novel, Death Is so Fair, recounting the Anglo-Irish disputes from 1916 until 1922. In 1937, Dublin’s Abbey Theatre presented his loosely historical drama, The Man in the Cloak. The play is about the nineteenth century Irish poet, James Clarence Mangan, whose writing was unappreciated and who died in poverty and misery. Acts one and three of this three-act play recount the poet’s demise, while the second act depicts Mangam’s opium dream through flashbacks. Following this production, D’Alton served as play director for the Abbey Theatre for five months in 1939. During his directorship, he staged a production of his own play, To-Morrow Never Comes, in which he played the lead.
D’Alton’s first commercial success was The Money Doesn’t Matter: A Play in Three Acts, which ran at the Abbey Theatre for nine weeks in 1941. This is a problem play interspersed with a great deal of the Irish wit that characterizes much of the country’s rural population. The play is about Tom Mannion, born into an impoverished family with little social standing. Tom is ambitious and early in life resolves to become wealthy. He achieves his ambition, finally having the wherewithal to buy anything he wants and to shower his riches upon his family. The rub is that his children abhor his domination. His eldest son becomes a drunk, clearly unable to replace Mannion when he cannot look after his own affairs. The younger son, who is more stable and is the presumptive heir to his father’s enterprises, dies in an automobile accident. Mannion’s favorite daughter leaves home to become a nun. The one remaining daughter is vicious and dishonorable. Because Mannion’s rigid personality makes it impossible for him to change, the play ends without resolution.
D’Alton died in 1951. The last of his plays produced in his lifetime was They Got What They Wanted, but it was followed by the posthumous production of three more of his plays, The Devil a Saint Would Be, This Other Eden, and Cafflin’ Johnny: A Comedy in Three Acts. A solid regionalist, he was at his strongest when he wrote realistically about the rural Irish. He experimented with unreality, as in the opium dream scene in The Man in the Cloak, but he seemed incapable of resolving the dramatic problems that such scenes produced.