Search Results for 'Gregory S'

In 1911 the successful and popular Theodore Roosevelt had recently completed his two-terms as president, but was still a man of incomparable influence, when the Abbey Theatre opened in New York on Monday November 27.

The first time Lady Gregory met John Quinn was on Sunday August 31 1902 at a Feis Ceol she had partly organised in the memory of Ó Raifteirí the poet. The occasion also marked Lady Gregory’s first steps into the Celtic revival movement which would absorb her energies throughout her long life, and define her reputation for ever.

Not only is it interesting to see the initials of the people Lady Gregory admired on her ‘Hall of Fame’, the famous autograph tree at Coole Park, Co Galway, it is perhaps more interesting to see the names she leaves out.

The most revolutionary play ever produced on an Irish stage was Cathleen Ní Houlihan written by WB Yeats and Lady Gregory. It was performed to a packed audience on a makeshift stage at St Teresa’s Hall in Clarendon Street, Dublin on April 2 1902. It was astonishing in its veracity.

‘Dearest beloved - It is such a beautiful morning that you ought to be here and we should be walking in the garden …and if we were, what more should we do where the bushes hid us?’ These intimate words were written by the British politician, later prime minister, Ramsey MacDonald, to Lady Margaret Sackville whose initials are on the famous autograph tree at Coole.

In April 1902 Augusta Lady Gregory was working hard at her home at Coole, translating from Irish the myths and legends of Ireland. Somebody had dubbed Coole ‘the workshop of Ireland’, and the phrase went straight to her heart. Her pride in it glows in her letters to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, her one-time lover and life-long friend, and admirer.*