Lady Gregory

She was a key player in the Gaelic revival towards the end of the 19th century and the formation of the Abbey Theatre was central to the new Ireland which would emerge as the next century dawned.

The death of Lady Gregory in May 1932 was widely lamented and her passing so shortly after Irish independence was a tragedy.

The Irish Independent reported that:

The death of Lady - Gregory creates a gap in the national life which it will be difficult to fill. Her work, both as playwright and as director of the Abbey Theatre has shed lustre on the name of Ireland and has made our country known and respected even amongst those who were unappreciative of or unsympathetic with its political aspirations. It is to Lady Gregory herself in large measure that we owe the very existence of a national theatre. Her work bore rich fruit even in her lifetime and there is no reason to suppose that all the harvest-has yet been garnered. Ireland is the poorer for her loss, but she has left behind her an enduring monument to bear witness to..

Closer to home the Connacht Sentinel newspaper noted that Gregory had been:

in failing health some time, [and her death] occurred at midnight on Sunday at her residence, Coole Park, Gort. Lady Gregory was famous as the founder and inspirer of the Irish National Theatre, and popular as the author of some of the most successful of that theatre's plays. She was the youngest daughter of Dudley Persse, D.L., of Roxborough, Co. Galway, and was born there 80 years ago. In 1882 she married, as his second wife, the Right Hon. Sir William Gregory, P.C., K.C.M.G. F.R.S.I, who sat for some time as member of Parliament for Dublin and for County Galway.

Lady Gregory's first published volumes were an autobiography of her husband and ‘Mr. Gregory's Letter Box," which contained a selection of the correspondence of her husband's grandfather, who had been Under Secretary for Ireland from 1813 to 1830.

After the death of her husband in 1892 Lady Gregory continued to live at Coole. and it was there she entertained George Moore, Edward Martyn and W. B. Yeats for the preliminary discussions on the foundation of the Irish theatre. From time to time almost every personality of note in the literary world has experienced the hospitality of Coole, and much of Mr. Yeats’s later work was written there. In her native county Lady Gregory availed herself of even" opportunity for intercourse with the people; she learned Irish, and became a well-known and welcome visitor to the cottages of the country folk. In this way she gathered an immense mass of folk-lore and legend which wore in later years to become the material for her plays and other works. Lady Gregory wrote, over thirty plays in her short writing life, and for one who began so late in life her output was surprising. All but  one or two of her plays have been staged at the Abbey Theatre, but her three-act play for three characters, " Grania," has never been staged there. For over twenty-five years she continued to contribute n stream of plays to the Abbey Theatre repertory. Not content with original plays Lady Gregory contributed translations and adaptations from Moliere, Goldoni, Sudermann and Douglas Hyde, so that her contribution to the Abbey Theatre must be accounted the greatest of single contributions: she was inspirer, founder, dramatist and director, from the conception of the enterprise until her death, and throughout all that long period she nursed the theatre as probably no one ever will again. Her organising ability was known to all connected with the theatre, and the strength of her will was demonstrated many times.

For more information search the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive (www.irishnewsarchive.com )