Introduced by Patrick Lonergan, The Methuen Drama Anthology of Irish Plays brings together five major works from the Irish dramatic canon of the last sixty years in one outstanding collection. Behan's The Hostage, depicting the capture and death of a British soldier by the IRA, was first produced by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop in 1958 and was declared 'a masterpiece' by The Times. Murphy's Bailegangaire (1985) portrays a senile old woman's recitation of an epic tale to her two granddaughters who struggle to free themselves from her and exorcise the past. Reid's The Belle of the Belfast City, winner of the George Devine Award in 1986, examines the tensions present in three generations of women in a Belfast-Protestant family during the week of an anti-Anglo-Irish rally. Sebastian Barry's The Steward of Christendom won the London Critics' Circle Award for Best Play 1995 and was heralded by the Guardian as 'an authentic masterpiece'. McDonagh's 1996 play The Cripple of Inishmaan is a strange comic tale in the great tradition of Irish storytelling. McDonagh was awarded the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.

A collection of plays by one of Ireland's finest dramatists of the 80s and 90s Tea in a China Cup focuses on the differing experiences of three generations of women in a working-class Belfast Protestant family, a tapestry of tales linked by the central character Beth, torn between the influence of traditions and the rejection of gentility and respectability. Did You Here the One About the Irishman? shows how both nationalists and loyalists are dependent on one another; Joyriders, grew out of the work Reid did with residents at the notorious Davis Flats estate and is structured around the day-to-day activities of four Catholic teenagers on a youth training scheme running at a now-disused textile mill in Belfast and plays on the idea of Britain taking a joy-ride through Ireland; The Belle of Belfast city shows Dolly, a former music-hall star whose bawdy songs and unconventional antics conjure a magical Belfast far removed from that represented by her nephew Jack, a hardline loyalist politician. My Name, Shall I Tell You My name? is "Fierce, poignant...a formidable portrait of intransigent, archaic patriotism" (The Times) and Clowns (the sequel to Joyriders) is a "warmhearted, compassionate play". (The Guardian)