Reminiscences of Yeats

Abstract

In a room in the old-fashioned Nassau Hotel, which looked northward into College Park, Dublin, a group of authors and actors had banded together in the early 1900’s to read new plays and to settle by vote which plays should be produced, and where and when. The idea of thus introducing democracy into art was George Russell’s. Though it gave the actors, who were all amateurs, an opportunity to meet the playwrights, it also provided the stimulus for arguments that lasted, in some instances, for months. For their productions the group hired cheap halls, such as St. Theresa’s Hall in Clarendon Street and a kind of clubhouse in Camden Street, and between rehearsals they held lectures on art and on the drama. So began the literary movement that was later to become the world-famous Abbey Theatre and the Irish National Theatre.

Mourning Became Mrs. Spendlove and Other Portraits, Grave and Gay (New York: Creative Age Press, 1948) pp. 211–24.