It reached its zenith quickly, and as far as the production of plays is concerned, it would seem to be already in its decline.

That is to say, what in the beginning was a fresh and vivid inspiration caught direct from life has become a pattern whose colours and shape can be repeated or varied by lesser writers who take their teaching from the original discoverers.

But in the course of its brief and striking course it produced one great dramatist--a writer whom already not three years after his death, men instinctively class with the masters of his art.
J.M.Synge, in the earlier years of his manhood, lived entirely abroad, leading the life of a wandering scholar from city to city and country to country till he was persuaded to give up the Continent and the criticism and imitation of French literature, to return to England, and to go and live on the Aran Islands.

From that time till his death--some ten years--he spent a large part of each year amongst the peasantry of the desolate Atlantic coast and wrote the plays by which his name is known.
His literary output was not large, but he supplied the Irish dramatic movement with exactly what it needed--a vivid contact with the realities of life.

Not that he was a mere student or transcriber of manners.