Irish Plays and Playwrights

by Cornelius Weygandt

IRISH PLAYS

AND PLAYWRIGHTS

BY

CORNELIUS WEYGANDT

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1913

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY CORNELIUS WEYGANDT

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published February 1913

From a photograph by Alice Boughton

W. B. YEATS

PREFACE

There are so many who have helped me with this book that I cannot begin to thank them one by one. If I name any, however, there are four I would name together. There is my old friend, long since dead, Lawrence Kelly, of County Wexford, who first told me Irish folk-stories, adding to the wonderment of my boyhood with his tales of Finn McCool, Dean Swift, and "The Red-haired Man." There is Dr. Robert Ellis Thompson, of Philadelphia, who quickened, by his enthusiasm, over "twenty golden years ago," my interest in all things Irish. There is Dr. Clarence Griffin Child, my colleague, who recognized the power of these men I write of in "Irish Plays and Playwrights" when there were fewer to recognize their power than there are to-day. There is Mr. John Quinn, of New York, without whose aid ten years ago the current Irish dramatic movement would not have progressed as it has. He has lent for reproduction here the sketches by Mr. J. B. Yeats of Synge, Mr. George Moore, and Mr. Padraic Colum. All but all of the writers I mention particularly in these chapters have put me under obligation by cheerful response to many letters full of questions as to their work. Mr. James H. Cousins and Mr. S. Lennox Robinson have taken especial trouble in my behalf, and Lady Gregory, Mr. W. B. Yeats, and Mr. George W. Russell have put themselves out in many ways that I might learn of Irish Letters.

University of Pennsylvania, December 28, 1912.

CONTENTS

I.	The Celtic Renaissance	1
II.	The Players and their Plays, their Audience and their Art	13
III.	Mr. William Butler Yeats	37
IV.	Mr. Edward Martyn And Mr. George Moore	72
V.	Mr. George W. Russell ("A. E.")	114
VI.	Lady Gregory	138
VII.	John Millington Synge	160
VIII.	The Younger Dramatists—Mr. Padraic Colum—Mr. William Boyle—Mr. T.C. Murray—Mr. S. Lennox Robinson—Mr. Rutherford Mayne—"Norreys Connell"—Mr. St. John G. Ervine—Mr. Joseph Campbell	198
IX.	William Sharp ("Fiona Macleod")	251
Appendix		297
	Plays produced, in Dublin, by the Abbey Theatre Company
Index		305

ILLUSTRATIONS

W. B. Yeats	Frontispiece
⁠From a photograph by Alice Boughton.
Douglas Hyde	10
⁠From a photograph by Alice Boughton.
Sara Allgood	24
⁠From a photograph by Alice Boughton.
Scene from "Cathleen ni Houlihan"	50
George Moore	72
⁠Reproduced by courtesy of John Quinn, Esq.
George W. Russell	114
Lady Gregory	138
John Millington Synge	160
⁠Reproduced by courtesy of John Quinn, Esq.
Padraic Colum	198
⁠Reproduced by courtesy of John Quinn, Esq.
T. C. Murray	216
Lennox Robinson	222
⁠From a photograph by Alice Boughton.
William Sharp	250