It was Yeats who had encouraged him to go west in search of writing material among the Irish-speaking areas that were even then dwindling. As well as the Aran Islands, Synge spent valuable time in West Kerry â where the fictional Christy Mahon begins his odyssey â and in Mayo, where most of the Playboyâs action occurs. But by his own account, a crucial part of Syngeâs education also happened in the east, among the Wicklow Mountains, where he set his early one-act play, In the Shadow of the Glen (1903). That too was based on a story heard from Dirane and yet when writing it, Synge recalled years later: âI got more aid than any learning could have given me from a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being said by the servant girls in the kitchenâ.