what is a tragedy?

an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious

accident, crime, or natural catastrophe

a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially
one concerning the downfall of the main character.

Riders to the sea as a tragedy

With riders to the sea, J.M Synge has digressed from the norms of a generic
Shakespearean play to bring back to life the ancient Greek essence of a tragedy.
Despite awakening an art long dead during the time of the Celtic revolution J.M.
Synge had perfected the one act play to arouse deep emotions from the audience.

Survival against the odds of life

Importance of fate and how you cannot combat it
It is not really a tragedy of character
The inhabitants of Aran Islands are dependent solely on the sea in order to support their
family.
Thus here the sea assumes almost the role of fate and becomes instrumental to human
suffering and death. 
Maurya lost her loved ones leading to her tragic downfall
“I've had a husband, and a husband's father, and six sons in this house …, but they're gone
now, the lot of them”

Riders to the sea as a tragedy

A generic tragedy is one that has an unhappy ending and leads to the downfall of the
main character. With riders to the sea, J.M Synge has digressed from the norms of
a generic Shakespearean play to bring back to life the ancient Greek essence of a
tragedy. Despite awakening an art long dead during the time of the Celtic
revolution J.M. Synge had perfected the one act play to arouse deep emotions
from the audience. The tragic part of this story revolves around the fact that fate
cannot be defied as we know all the men of the family die at the end. Despite
Bartley’s defiance towards fate, he follows the same path of his brothers and
fathers. In this book, the Aran islanders are dependent on the sea to provide for
their families hence, the sea adopts the role of fate. The islanders are faced with
the Munchausen trilemma as they will starve if not provide for their family
otherwise suffer merciless death the hands of sea while trying to provide.
Maurya the protagonist is the victim of this tragedy and throughout the act, her
character develops from a caring, worried mother to a lady who is absolved of all
sorts of feeling due to the fact that she has lost all her children. “I've had a
husband, and a husband's father, and six sons in this house …, but they're gone
now, the lot of them” she says as she recounts the men of the family who
sacrificed themselves at sea to aid their family. Her spirit is broken down when
she realizes that her last son Bartley is about to die when she sees him on the
grey horse, a sign that an unfortunate event is bound to take place, and she then
loses all hope, leaving her in a worse place than before. Eventually, she gains a
sense of relief and is at peace with herself after all the men in her family have
died. Despite, that mere sense of relief her hope is stolen from her and she is left
in a worse place than when she started out. This is how a perfect Greek tragedy
is displayed by J.M. Synge as it revolves more around the fate set for the
character and less about the character establishing the path for his/her own
destiny upon which the modern Shakespearean plays are built.