Recollections of the Abbey Theatre

Abstract

Soon after I became articled to a firm of electrical engineers, I was told one day after knocking about the firm’s shop to go to a large building at eight o’clock in the morning and there I would meet the foreman. The building happened to be the Eye and Ear Hospital, Adelaide Road. I arrived in due course at the appointed hour and asked where I would find the electrical foreman. A sixty feet perpendicular ladder was pointed out to me, and I was told if I went up that I would find him on the top floor, which I managed to do with fear and trembling. I then found the foreman who happened to be W. G. Fay. From the start we got on very well together, during the continuance of that particular contract and many others. It was not long before we got talking of other things besides electrical work, and — after he had listened to some of my stories of stealing out at night down the country (in the small town of Carrick-on-Suir) to see dramatic shows, the stage being the side of a caravan let down and the auditorium a canvas tent — he asked me would I like to come round and see a rehearsal of some plays which were about to be presented at the Molesworth Hall. Of course I jumped at the opportunity. The rehearsal room in those days was the Camden Hall. There I met the members of the company.

Lennox Robinson, Ireland’s Abbey Theatre: A History 1899–1951 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1951) pp. 76–7. Editor’s title.