Abbey Theatre, Dublin
Abbey Theatre, Dublin,opened on 27 Dec. 1904 with a double bill of one-act plays, W. B. Yeats 's On Baile's Strand and a comedy Spreading the News by Lady Gregory . The theatre rapidly became a focus of the Irish Revival . In 1903 Miss A. E. Horniman , a friend of Yeats from his London days, had been introduced by him to the Irish National Theatre Society, an amateur company led by F. J. and W. G. Fay , which had already produced several plays by contemporary Irish writers, including Yeats's Cathleen and G. Russell 's ( Æ's ) Deirdre. She decided to provide a permanent Dublin home for the Society (which had Yeats for its president) and took over the disused theatre of the Mechanics' Institute in Abbey Street (built on the site of a previous Theatre Royal), together with the old city morgue next door, and converted them into the Abbey Theatre, with Lady Gregory as holder of the patent. The...
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