Peep O' Day, or Savourneen Dheelish

Peep O' Day, or Savourneen Dheelish is an Irish romantic drama in four acts by Edmund Falconer (1814-1879)[1]

Also referred to simply as Peep O' Day or Savourneen Dheelish,

An alternative spelling of "Dheelish", namely "Deelish" is often found.

Various variations of the full title is found in advertisments and articles, e.g. a production at the St. John Dramatic Lyceum, on 21 June, 1867, it was billed both as Peep O'Day, or Savourneen Deelish! and Peep O'Day! or Savourneen Deelish)[2].

The original text

Said by the author to have been "Derived from tales of the O'Hara Family", i.e. from the stories contained in The Peep O' Day, or John Doe and Crohoore of the Billhook[3] by "The O'Hara Family" (pseudonym of John Banim, 1798-1842, and later edited his brother Michael Banim, 1796-1874), this piece was originally played at the Adelphi, Liverpool, under the title of The Green Hills. It was then performed for a long run under the current name as musical play with a large cast, at the Lyceum Theatre, London on 9 November, 1861, and then reworked and played in a new version at the Drury Lane Theatre, London on 28 February, 1870

The original playtext was published by and the "New Drury Lane Version" by Robert M. De Witt, New York (1870?) and The Dramatic Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, in 1888?

Performance history in South Africa

1875: Performed as The Peep o' Day on 20 September in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town by the Disney Roebuck company, with The Whites and the Browns (Anon.).

1875: Performed as The Peep O' Day or Savourneen Deelish on 22 September in the Bijou Theatre, Cape Town by the Disney Roebuck company, with The Whites & the Browns (Anon.).

1877: Performed as a benefit for Georgina Robertson and W. Foulis under the short title of Peep O' Day on 5 September in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town by the Disney Roebuck company, with The Wonderful Woman, or The Marquis and The Cobbler (Dance).

1882: Performed as Peep o' Day in the Theatre Royal, Burg Street, Cape Town by Mabel Hayes and her company as part of a varied season of plays and operatic works that opened in December 1882 and lasted till July 1883.

Sources

Facsimile version of the 1870 De Witt text, Hathi Trust Digital Library[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Falconer

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Falconer,_Edmund

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101066478320&view=1up&seq=5

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t0ks7vb7v&view=1up&seq=5

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 327, 360, 376

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