“A big bouncing baby every year.”

Speaker: Carthalawn (wedding blessing)

Significance: A jokey “blessing” that shows rural expectations that a woman’s worth is tied to marriage and constant childbearing – part of the play’s critique of gender roles and narrow life paths for women.

“There is money making everywhere.”

Speaker: Pats Bocock

Significance: Pats comments on the changing Ireland where money and profit are becoming the new gods, foreshadowing how greed, not morality, will drive the decisions around Sive’s future.

“Money will be in a-plenty. The likes of him will be the new lords of the land. God help the land!”

Speaker: Pats Bocock (about Sean Dota)

Significance: Pats predicts that wealthy farmers like Dota will replace the old ruling class, warning that a society built on money rather than values is doomed – directly tied to the central conflict of selling Sive.

“’Tis only what I see in my travels, a-woman – only what I see on my travels.”

Speaker: Pats Bocock (to Mena)

Significance: Pats defends his cynical view of society by claiming the authority of an outsider-observer, reinforcing his role as a commentator on the greed and moral decay in the community.

“Given for Sive but the two of us know that Mena will have £40 out of the £50 for herself.”

Speaker: Thomasheen Rua

Significance: This exposes the match for what it is: a cash deal. Sive’s life is priced, and Mena’s cut shows how personal greed outweighs any concern for the girl’s welfare.

“I’ll shave if I’m to see the priest,”

Speaker: Mike

Significance: Mike’s reluctance but ultimate decision to “tidy himself” for the priest highlights the social power of the clergy and the grip of Church approval in rural Ireland.

“Do not give her to that rotting old man with his gloating eyes and trembling hands.”

Speaker: Liam Scuab (pleading with Mike)

Significance: Liam’s language makes Dota’s physical decay repulsive, underlining the moral horror of the match and highlighting Liam as the voice of genuine love and moral conscience.

“He was no father. He had no name. You have no name. You will have no name till you take a husband.”

Speaker: Mena (to Sive)

Significance: Mena weaponises Sive’s illegitimacy, showing how social stigma around “name” and respectability crushes identity and is used to bully women into marriage.

“You are a bye-child, a common bye child, a bastard.”

Speaker: Mena (to Sive)

Significance: This vicious insult exposes the cruelty Sive faces at home and shows how illegitimacy is used to strip her of dignity and power – a key driver of her isolation and despair.

“Nearly tore the coat off me… like an ould sick thing.”

Speaker: Sive (about Sean Dota)

Significance: Sive’s description turns Dota from an “old suitor” into a physical threat, making the marriage clearly abusive and helping the audience understand her terror and later suicide.

“There are queer doin’s goin’ on between Mena Thomasheen Rua.”

Speaker: Nanna

Significance: Nanna senses conspiracy between Mena and Thomasheen, signalling to the audience that the marriage plot is calculated and corrupt rather than accidental.

“I swear to you he never would have hanged himself but he knew my two pigs would pay for his wake and funeral.”

Speaker: Thomasheen Rua (about his father)

Significance: Thomasheen’s cold joke about his father’s suicide shows his callousness and obsession with money, foreshadowing his willingness to sacrifice Sive for profit.

“I know what a man have to do who have no woman to lie with him. He have to drink hard, or he have to walk under a black sky when every eye is closed in sleep.”

Speaker: Thomasheen Rua

Significance: He paints male loneliness as a torment that “justifies” desperate actions, used to excuse selling Sive to Dota and exposing the twisted logic behind the match.

“Sell your soul to the devil for a drink of buttermilk.”

Speaker: Nanna (to Thomasheen)

Significance: Nanna sums up Thomasheen’s greed in one line – he’ll trade anything, even his soul, for gain, making him a clear symbol of moral corruption in the play.

“Sive and that ‘oul corpse of a man, Sean Dota.”

Speaker: Mike

Significance: Even Mike, usually weak, briefly voices the horror of the match, calling Dota a “corpse” and showing a clear awareness of how unnatural and abusive it is.

“Tell her you will bell-rag her through the parish if she goes against you. Tell her you will hunt the old woman into the county home.”

Speaker: Thomasheen (coaching Mena)

Significance: This quote shows the brutality of social shaming and the threat of the County Home as weapons of control, used to intimidate both Sive and Nanna into submission.

“You could say he would be for the grave within a year of two..”

Speaker: Thomasheen (about Sean Dota)

Significance: Thomasheen coldly points out Dota’s likely soon death, implying Sive will at least inherit – reducing marriage to a financial calculation and ignoring her humanity.

“He have the mouth half-open when he do be talking about her. ’Tis the sign of love, women!”

Speaker: Thomasheen

Significance: He grotesquely mislabels Dota’s lust as “love,” highlighting the play’s criticism of how language is twisted to dress up exploitation as romance.

“What is she but a schoolgirl and illegitimate, to crown all.”

Speaker: Mena

Significance: Mena belittles Sive as both immature and illegitimate, revealing her bitterness and the social prejudice that makes Sive easier to sell off.

“Out working with a farmer you should be, my girl, instead of getting your head filled with high notions. You’ll come to no good either, like the one that went before you!”

Speaker: Mena (Page 11)

Significance: Mena attacks Sive’s education and ambition, reinforcing restrictive gender roles and hinting at a previous “fallen” woman – a warning about what happens to girls who step outside the norm.

“Every woman of your age in the parish has a child of her own and nothing to show by you.”

Speaker: Nanna (Page 14)

Significance: Nanna shames Mena for being childless, showing how women judge each other by fertility and motherhood – feeding Mena’s resentment and greed.

“Money is the best friend a man ever had.”

Speaker: Mike (Page 23)

Significance: Mike admits the power of money openly, explaining why he allows himself to be persuaded into betraying Sive despite knowing it is wrong.

“I love her.”

Speaker: Liam (Page 29)

Significance: Simple and honest, this contrasts sharply with the cold bargaining around Sive, setting true love against arranged, transactional marriage.

“The devil’s work, that’s what it is.”

Speaker: Nanna (Page 50)

Significance: Nanna names the marriage plot as evil, using religious language to condemn the greed and cruelty that are driving Sive to tragedy.

“Small thanks you show for the freedom you have here.”

Speaker: Mena (Page 51)

Significance: Mena claims Sive is “free” while actually controlling every part of her life – bitter irony that shows how power can disguise itself as generosity.

“Some people do not know when they are well off!”

Speaker: Thomasheen (Page 52)

Significance: Thomasheen suggests Sive is “lucky” to be sold to Dota, revealing how deeply the adults have normalised exploitation as opportunity.

“There is a hatchery of sin in this house.”

Speaker: Nanna (Page 53)

Significance: Nanna describes the home as a breeding ground of sin, capturing the moral rot at the heart of the family and framing the house itself as corrupt.

“You will have no enemy when you have the name of money.”

Speaker: Mena (Page 57)

Significance: Mena believes money protects you from all harm, showing how greed has completely replaced empathy or morality in her worldview.

“You are a bye-child.”

Speaker: Mena (Page 59)

Significance: The blunt label underlines Sive’s outsider status in her own home and the community, reinforcing her vulnerability and lack of social protection.

“Take heed of a man with a piece of property.”

Speaker: Mena (Page 59)

Significance: Property, not character, is what matters; this line shows how marriage is treated as a financial strategy rather than a relationship.

“If ye know God ye must think of this terrible auction.”

Speaker: Liam (Page 64)

Significance: Liam compares the marriage to a cattle auction, exposing the dehumanisation of Sive and using religious language to appeal to Mike’s conscience.

“See it with good eyes instead of greedy ones.”

Speaker: Liam (Page 64)

Significance: Liam directly names greed as the problem, urging Mike to look beyond money and see the moral reality of what is being done to Sive.

“Sive has no wish for it.”

Speaker: Mike (Page 66)

Significance: Mike briefly acknowledges Sive’s lack of consent, making his eventual agreement even more damning because he cannot claim ignorance.

“The poor tormented child.”

Speaker: Liam (Page 93)

Significance: Liam’s description of Sive after her death reminds the audience she is a victim, not a sinner – a direct challenge to social and religious judgement.

“A woman never knows from one minute to the next what way her mind is going to act.”

Speaker: Thomasheen

Significance: A classic sexist generalisation used to justify controlling women’s choices, showing how patriarchy is built into everyday thinking.

Men must “make up the mind for them.”

Speaker: Thomasheen (to Mike)

Significance: He openly states that men should decide for women, capturing the complete lack of female agency at the core of the tragedy.

“Buried in holy ground.”

Speaker: Mike (about Sive’s suicide)

Significance: Mike’s fear that Sive might be denied burial in consecrated ground shows how religious rules deepen the family’s guilt and shame after her death.

“No luck in going for a priest alone.”

Speaker: Mike

Significance: This line highlights the role of superstition alongside religion, showing a community shaped by fear, ritual, and a sense of fate rather than rational control.