Written by Irish American Dion Boucicault, this play was intended to celebrate Irish heritage. The Colleen Bawn, like many of the other plays written by Boucicault, focuses on a wealthy landowner who is torn between wanting stay with an exotic, yet forbidden, beauty (in this case, the 'colleen bawn', or fair girl, Eily O'Connor) and his cousin who he is expected to wed. While this play follows the same formula as Boucicault's other work, and reinforces several stereotypes of Irish people, the play does include a somewhat ominous ending that suggests Boucicault intended for the play to highlight some of the fears of the Irish in regards to English occupation and miscegnation. 

As quoted in Scott Boltwood's article, "The Ineffaceable Curse of Cain," The Colleen Bawn ends with the character Eily saying, "it's frightened I am to be surrounded by so many-" only to be cut off by the Anne (Hardress' cousin he was supposed to wed), who interupts her and says, "Friends, Eily, friends." Eily's final line is then "Oh, if I could think so," thus ending the play on a very awkward note between Hardress and Eily; which, as Boltwood explains, highlights the sentiments felt by the Irish during this time in regards to the English.

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