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Character analysis

Rosie Redmond

in The Plough and the Stars by Seán O'Casey

Rosie Redmond is a Dublin sex worker featured mainly in Act II of Seán O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars, which is set during the 1916 Easter Rising. She works out of a pub where nationalist speeches are being given offstage, and her character acts as a stark, ironic contrast to the idealism and rhetoric surrounding her. Rosie is bold, practical, and unapologetically self-serving—a woman navigating the fringes of a society that romanticizes sacrifice while overlooking its most vulnerable individuals.

In Act II, her story revolves around her unsuccessful attempts to attract customers amid the political excitement. The men around her are caught up in nationalist fervor, leaving her in a tough economic position; she bitterly observes that the meetings have destroyed her business. Her only moment of connection comes with Fluther Good, whose tendency to be flattered she cleverly takes advantage of, ultimately convincing him to buy her drinks and leave with her—a small, darkly humorous win.

Rosie's defining characteristics include her sharp wit, her blunt cynicism toward patriotism and male pride, and her resilience. She deflates the evening's grandiosity with her down-to-earth, mercenary perspective. O'Casey uses her character to highlight the disconnect between revolutionary ideals and the harsh reality faced by Dublin's impoverished, especially women. Although she vanishes from the play after Act II, her brief appearance leaves a significant mark as a symbol of those whom nationalist rhetoric both neglects and inadvertently harms.

About this character

Form
Play
Author
Seán O'Casey
First published
1926

The person01–03

01·Who they are

Who is Rosie Redmond?

Rosie Redmond is a Dublin prostitute who appears almost exclusively in Act II of The Plough and the Stars, set in a pub on the night of a nationalist rally during the lead-up to the 1916 Easter Rising. She is loud, streetwise, and entirely unsentimentalised; O'Casey refuses to make her pitiable or redemptive in any conventional sense. Instead, she is presented as a pragmatist operating at the economic margins of a city intoxicated by revolutionary rhetoric. Her occupation places her outside the bounds of respectable Catholic nationalism, yet she occupies the same cramped tenement world as the play's other characters, subject to the same poverty and the same brutal indifference of history. Rosie's brazen self-presentation — her bright clothes, her frank pursuit of customers, her unashamed mercantile attitude toward men — functions as an implicit rebuke to the elevated language drifting in from the street meeting outside.

02·Arc & motivation

What is Rosie Redmond's arc and motivation?

Rosie enters Act II with a clearly defined and entirely practical goal: to conduct business. The nationalist meeting has, as she repeatedly makes plain, devastated her trade by filling the pub with men whose minds are on Ireland rather than on her. Her arc across the act consists of a series of failed attempts at earning money, punctuated by contempt and harassment from the men around her. Her motivation is survival, pure and simple. She does not pretend otherwise. While the play's male characters cloak self-interest in grand ideological language — republican sacrifice, workers' solidarity — Rosie states her self-interest baldly, which in O'Casey’s ironic scheme makes her arguably the most honest figure in the room. Her small triumph — successfully flattering Fluther Good into buying her drinks and leaving with her — lacks glorious resolution, but it is the only kind of victory available to her, and she seizes it with characteristic practicality.

03·Key moments

What are Rosie Redmond's key moments?

The central sequence of Act II belongs to Rosie in significant measure. Her running complaint that the political meetings have ruined her livelihood establishes immediately that the Rising's grand nationalism has a cost measured in the humblest economic terms. Her verbal clash with the Covey is particularly sharp: he dismisses her on ideological and moral grounds, invoking the language of socialist doctrine to justify his contempt, and she refuses to be silenced, matching him insult for insult. This exchange is crucial because O'Casey frames the Covey's self-righteousness as no more dignified than his target — the revolutionary rhetoric that should theoretically champion the dispossessed is wielded here to demean one of its most dispossessed members. Her manipulation of Fluther — systematic flattery applied to his vanity about his skills and his youth — is the act's dark comic set piece, and it is entirely controlled by Rosie. She reads him accurately, works him methodically, and exits on her own terms. After Act II she disappears from the play entirely, which is itself a structural statement: the Rising swallows her world without recording her name.

The cast04–05

04·Relationships

What are Rosie Redmond's most important relationships?

With Fluther Good, Rosie demonstrates her sharpest skill — reading male ego and exploiting it. Fluther's susceptibility to flattery about his vigour and experience makes him an easy mark, and their departure together is her only professional success of the evening, rendered comic precisely because Fluther believes he is the one doing the choosing.

With the Covey, the dynamic is openly adversarial. His ideological contempt for her — dismissing her using the language of socialist theory — reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of male radicalism in the play: a politics claiming to speak for the oppressed that cannot extend basic dignity to a woman like Rosie. She refuses to absorb his contempt quietly, and their sparring is the act's most charged ideological confrontation.

Compared with Nora Clitheroe, Rosie forms one half of O'Casey’s implicit argument about women and the Rising. Nora is respectable, married, and still destroyed by the nationalist politics she cannot control. Rosie is marginalised from the outset. That the Rising renders both equally powerless is O'Casey’s pointed comment on the rhetoric of liberation.

With Peter Flynn and the other pub habitués, Rosie is simply an inconvenience to be ignored or rebuffed, which sharpens her economic grievance: these men's idealism costs her income they cannot even be bothered to notice they are taking.

05·Connected characters

How is Rosie Redmond connected to the other characters?

Fluther Good

Rosie's most significant interaction is with Fluther, whose vanity and fondness for drink she expertly manipulates. She flatters him shamelessly in the pub, and he responds by buying her drinks and ultimately leaving with her — making him her one 'success' of the evening and providing the act's darkly comic resolution.

The Covey

The Covey is contemptuous of Rosie, dismissing her on ideological and moral grounds. Their exchanges are hostile and charged with class tension; he represents the kind of self-righteous male radicalism that has no use for women like her, and she gives as good as she gets in their verbal sparring.

Nora Clitheroe

Rosie and Nora occupy opposite ends of the play's female spectrum — the respectable wife and the street prostitute — yet both are ultimately powerless within the male world of nationalist politics. Their contrast underscores O'Casey's critique of how the Rising affects women across the social divide.

Bessie Burgess

Both Rosie and Bessie are working-class women excluded from the nationalist narrative, though Bessie's Unionist loyalties set them apart ideologically. Neither is afforded dignity by the men around them, and their shared marginalisation implicitly links them as casualties of the political upheaval.

Peter Flynn

Peter is among the men in the pub whom Rosie attempts to engage for business, with little success. His pompous self-importance and preoccupation with the nationalist cause make him oblivious or hostile to her, reinforcing her complaint that the political meetings have destroyed her livelihood.

Study06–07

06·Questions

Questions readers ask about Rosie Redmond

Why does Rosie Redmond complain that the nationalist meetings have ruined her business?

The meetings fill the pub with men focused solely on Ireland's political cause, resulting in Rosie losing paying customers. Her livelihood relies on male attention, which the nationalist rallies divert, making the Rising's idealism directly costly to one of Dublin's most economically vulnerable women.

How does Rosie Redmond manipulate Fluther Good in Act II?

Rosie flatters Fluther's vanity about his vigor and experience, exploiting his known susceptibility to praise. She understands his ego accurately, works on it methodically, and successfully gets him to buy her drinks and leave the pub with her — her only professional achievement of the evening, and she maintains total control of this sequence despite Fluther's belief that he is making the choices.

What is Rosie Redmond's relationship with the Covey like?

Their relationship is openly confrontational. The Covey dismisses Rosie using socialist ideological language, viewing her as morally and politically beneath contempt, but she refuses to be silenced and responds with insults. O'Casey frames the exchange ironically: a politics that claims to support the dispossessed is used by the Covey to demean one of its most dispossessed members.

Is Rosie Redmond presented sympathetically or critically in the play?

O'Casey does not portray Rosie as a figure of pity or a moral lesson — she is unapologetically pragmatic and self-interested. Her honesty about her own motives is, in O'Casey's ironic perspective, more dignified than the male characters who disguise similar self-interest in grand nationalist or socialist rhetoric, inviting a degree of admiration even as her circumstances are dire.

How does Rosie Redmond compare to Nora Clitheroe in the play?

Rosie and Nora represent opposite ends of the female social spectrum — the street prostitute and the respectable nationalist wife — yet both remain ultimately powerless within the male-dominated world of the Rising. O'Casey uses this contrast to suggest that the Easter Rising's rhetoric of liberation fails women regardless of their social standing, making the two characters implicit counterparts in his critique.

Why does Rosie Redmond disappear after Act II?

Rosie disappears entirely from the play once the violence of the Rising escalates in the later acts. O'Casey's structural choice comments on the fact that history and nationalist narratives fail to acknowledge or mourn women like Rosie. Her absence enacts the very neglect her character has been illustrating — the Rising engulfs her world without recognizing her name.

What does Rosie Redmond represent thematically in 'The Plough and the Stars'?

Rosie embodies the divide between revolutionary idealism and the harsh daily realities faced by Dublin's poorest, particularly women. Her candid pragmatism serves as an ironic critique of the lofty nationalist speeches drifting in from offstage. O'Casey employs her to demonstrate that the cost of patriotic fervor is often borne by those the movement never aimed to liberate.

Does Rosie Redmond share any common ground with Bessie Burgess?

Both Rosie and Bessie are working-class women marginalized from the nationalist narrative and deprived of basic dignity by the men around them. Although their ideological positions differ — Bessie maintains Unionist loyalties — their shared marginalization connects them as victims of political upheaval, with neither receiving the respect or recognition that the play's male characters claim to champion.

07·Essay angles

Use this in your essay

Tool · Essay angles

  • Rosie as O'Casey’s ironic truth-teller: To what extent does her naked self-interest expose the dishonesty embedded in the male characters' nationalist and socialist idealism?

  • Gender and exclusion in the Rising: Analyse how O'Casey uses Rosie and Nora together to argue that the Easter Rising's rhetoric of liberation systematically excludes women across the social spectrum.

  • The economics of patriotism: How does Rosie's complaint that the nationalist meetings have destroyed her trade function as a critique of the material costs borne by Dublin's poorest while their supposed liberators speechify?

  • Comedy and marginalisation: Discuss O'Casey’s use of dark comedy in Rosie's scenes

    particularly her manipulation of Fluther — and consider whether humour humanises or further marginalises her character.

  • Structural absence: Rosie vanishes after Act II as violence escalates. What does her disappearance from the play's final two acts suggest about who history

    and nationalist narrative — chooses to record and mourn?

The Plough and the Stars

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