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Tag Archives: Cathleen ni Houlihan (play)


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Birth of Frank Fay, Actor, Producer and Co-founder of the Abbey Theatre

Frank J. (Francis John) Fay, actor, theatrical producer and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, is born on August 30, 1870, at 10 Lower Dorset Street, Dublin.

Fay is the eldest son of four children of William Patrick Fay, a government clerk, and his wife, Martha Fay (née Dowling). He is educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, where he learns shorthand and typing, before leaving to become a secretary for an accountancy firm in Dublin. From an early age he has a passion for the theatre and immerses himself in books on the subject, becoming a drama expert. His brother, William George Fay, shares his enthusiasm and they take part in many amateur productions, setting up the Ormonde Dramatic Company in 1891.

Fay is an ardent nationalist and Arthur Griffith appoints him drama critic for his newspaper, the United Irishman (1899–1902), where he develops his ideas on how the theatre should be run. Initially in favour of plays in the Irish language, he soon abandons this as unworkable. In May 1901 he attacks W. B. Yeats for his faulty notions about theatre and even his work as a dramatist, ending with the fiercely nationalistic assertion that “there is a herd of Saxon and other swine fattening on us. They must be swept into the sea with the pestilent breed of West Britons with which we are troubled, or they will sweep us there.” Yeats’s and Lady Gregory‘s next play is Cathleen ni Houlihan.

In 1902, Fay writes a famous article advocating a national theatre company that will “be the nursery of an Irish dramatic literature which, while making a world-wide appeal, would see life through Irish eyes.” He is a member of his brother’s National Dramatic Society, which merges with the Irish Literary Theatre in 1902 to form the Irish National Theatre Society, the originating body of the Abbey Theatre. The following year Yeats declares that the national theatre owes its existence to the two Fay brothers. Fay soon abandons Griffith and begins to champion the cause of Yeats.

An excellent tragic actor, Fay can make audiences forget his less than five feet six inch stature through the power of his voice. When the Abbey Theatre opens on December 27, 1904, he stars in Yeats’s On Baile’s Strand as Cú Chulainn, a role he makes his own. He spends much time training the other actors. As an elocution teacher he has no equal. One play has Yeats leaving with his “head on fire” because of the quality of the voices on stage. Yeats dedicates his play The King’s Threshold (1904) with the words: “In memory of Frank Fay and his beautiful speaking in the character of Seanchan.”

Fay has a close but turbulent relationship with his brother William, whom he defers to in all theatrical matters except acting. Their heated arguments sometimes lead to blows. His temper is always volatile and he is prone to histrionics and fits of depression. After 1905, the Abbey Theatre becomes a limited company owing to the patronage of Annie Horniman, and the Fays lose most of their control, which results in much tension and bitterness. In 1907, Fay plays Shawn Keogh in the first production of The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge.

Disagreements with Yeats over the approach to choosing and staging of plays comes to a head late in late 1907 and the Fays resign on January 13, 1908. On March 13 they are suspended from the Irish National Theatre Society. They tour the United States with Charles Frohman before separating. Fay then tours England in minor Shakespearean roles and melodrama. Between 1912 and 1914, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Mary Plunkett attempt to persuade him to become actor-manager of an Irish theatre. In 1918 he returns to the Abbey Theatre in two short-lived revivals of Yeats’s The Hour Glass and The King’s Threshold. He retires to Dublin permanently in 1921, teaching elocution and directing plays in local colleges.

Fay marries, in 1912, Freda, known as “Bird.” They live at Upper Mount Street, Dublin, and have one son, Gerard, who becomes a popular writer and memoirist. Fay dies on January 2, 1931, having never really recovered from the death of his wife, and is buried at Glasnevin Cemetery. He is credited with creating the Abbey Theatre style of acting, which becomes internationally known, and influences many other schools of acting. He wanted actors to behave as naturally as possible and to speak the lines as people would in real life, rather than with an exaggerated stage delivery. His training is a major influence on subsequent generations, as actors learned to “speak words with quiet force, like feathers borne on puffs of wind.”

(From: “Fay, Frank J. (Francis John)” by Patrick M. Geoghegan, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009) | Pictured: Portrait of Frank Fay by John Butler Yeats, commissioned by Annie Horniman for the opening of the Abbey Theatre, December 27, 1904)


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Birth of Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, Actress & Republican Activist

Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, Irish actress and republican activist, is born Mary Elizabeth Walker in Charlemont Street, Dublin, on May 8, 1883. She starts acting in her teens and appears in the first Irish language play performed in Ireland. She is a founder-member of the Abbey Theatre and is leading lady on its opening night in 1904, when she plays the title role in W. B. Yeats‘s Cathleen ni Houlihan. She later joins the Theatre of Ireland, which she helps to found.

Nic Shiubhlaigh is born into a nationalist and Irish-speaking family. Her father, Matthew, comes from County Carlow and is a printer and publisher who becomes proprietor of the Gaelic Press. Her mother, Mary, is a dressmaker from Dublin. She grows up in 56 High Street in the Dublin Liberties.

Nic Shiubhlaigh joins the Gaelic League about 1898 and comes into contact with Arthur Griffith and William Rooney. She joins the cultural and revolutionary women’s group Inghinidhe na hÉireann in 1900. With the help of drama enthusiasts William and Frank Fay, she starts acting with the drama group of Inghinidhe na hÉireann. In 1901, the drama group takes part in a feis with two plays, Tobar Draoidheachta by Patrick S. Dinneen and Red Hugh by Alice Milligan. George Russell and W.B. Yeats, who are in attendance at the performance, are moved by the dedication of the amateur players. Russell, who had already offered the Fays his mythic play Deirdre, persuades Yeats to offer them his patriotic play, Cathleen ni Houlihan.

In 1902, Nic Shiubhlaigh joins W. G. Fay’s Irish National Dramatic Company, along with others such as Maire Quinn, Brian Callender, Charles Caulfield, James H. Cousins, P. J. Kelly, Dudley Digges and Frederick Ryan. Their first production of the two one-act plays, Cathleen ni Houlihan, with Maud Gonne in the lead role, and Deirdre, is on April 2, 1902. The company, which has no funds to speak of, acquires a couple of bare rooms at 34 Lower Camden Street, which with the help of friends from Irish-revival societies, they turn into a tiny theatre. They rehearse at the Coffee Palace and also use the Molesworth Hall for productions. In March 1903, with other members of her family, she appears in the first production of Yeats’ morality play, The Hour-Glass, in which she plays the part of the Angel.

In 1903, the playwrights and most of the actors and staff from these productions go on to form the Irish National Theatre Society, which has its registered offices in the Camden Street theatre. Nic Shiubhlaigh is a founder member and on the management committee of the society. Yeats is president, while Russell, Maud Gonne and Douglas Hyde are vice-presidents. William Fay is stage manager. The society founds the Abbey Theatre.

Nic Shiubhlaigh acts in the Abbey Theatre from the time of its founding. On its opening night on December 27, 1904, she plays the name part in Cathleen ni Houlihan. Her portrait is painted by John Butler Yeats for the occasion and hangs in the vestibule. She is the principal actress of the company after Máire Quinn’s departure to the United States, and when she leaves, the burden of the chief women’s rôles falls upon Sara Allgood.

In September 1905, the Abbey administrator and financial backer, an English theatre impresario called Annie Horniman, in hopes of improving the artistic quality of the productions at the Abbey, offers to guarantee salaries (a sum of £500 per year) for the actors and for Willie Fay as producer. To her mind, this will allow the actors and Fay to dispense with their day jobs and concentrate wholly upon their acting. The more nationally-minded members of the staff disagree. Nic Shiubhlaigh writes, “It was pointed out that the old Irish National Theatre Society had been founded in 1902 on the understanding that its independence as a national movement was to be secured only through the efforts of its members. It would be contrary to these ideals to accept a subsidy from an independent source.” For them it would mean a choice between a national theatre and an artistic theatre. At a meeting of the society, supported by Yeats, Gregory and Synge, the motion to accept Miss Horniman’s proposition is passed by a majority of shareholdings rather than a majority of votes. Nic Shiubhlaigh along with others resign, but they agree to remain until the end of the year, as part of an upcoming tour of England.

Nic Shiubhlaigh remains with the Abbey until December 1905, when along with Honor Lavelle (also known as Helen Laird), Emma Vernon, Máire Garvey, Frank Walker, Seumas O’Sullivan, Padraic Colum and George Roberts, she leaves. She joins the Theatre of Ireland, which she helps to found. This is formed in June 1906 with aims similar to the Irish National Theatre Society. She returns to the Abbey in 1910.

At the time of the 1916 Easter Rising, Nic Shiubhlaigh is living in Glasthule, a suburb of Dublin. She cycles into the city and, along with other members of Cumann na mBan, makes her way to Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, whose garrison under the command of Thomas MacDonagh guards the city against the troops of Portobello Barracks, and acts as an information and supplies hub for other garrisons around the city. She commands the women of the garrison. They remain there until the surrender, cooking and rendering first aid to the garrison, and bringing despatches through the city.

Nic Shiubhlaigh had retired from professional acting in 1912, and seldom works in professional theatre again. In 1929, she marries former IRA Director of Organisation, Major General Eamon “Bob” Price, and they move to Laytown, County Meath.

Nic Shiubhlaigh’s last stage appearance, alongside her sister Gypsy, is in a production of Gaol Gate at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on November 21, 1948, staged to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Theobald Wolfe Tone.

Nic Shiubhlaigh dies on September 9, 1958, in the Drogheda cottage hospital.

Her book, The Splendid Years, written with the help of her nephew Edward Kenny, recalls the years of the national revival and the Easter Rising.

On July 23, 1966, a plaque bearing Nic Shiubhlaigh’s name is unveiled at the Abbey Theatre by the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass. The others named on the plaque are Ellen Bushell, Sean Connolly, Helena Molony, Arthur Shields, Peadar Kearney and Barney Murphy.

(Pictured: 1904 portrait of Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, as painted by John Butler Yeats)


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W.B. Yeats Receives Nobel Prize in Literature

william-butler-yeats-1

William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature, receives Nobel Prize in Literature on December 10, 1923.

Yeats is born at Sandymount in County Dublin on June 13, 1865. His father, John Butler Yeats, is a lawyer and a well-known portrait painter. He is educated in London and in Dublin but spends his summers in the west of Ireland in the family’s summer house at Connacht. The young Yeats is very much part of the fin de siècle in London. At the same time, he is active in societies that attempt an Irish literary revival. His first volume of verse appears in 1887, but in his earlier period his dramatic production outweighs his poetry both in bulk and in import.

Together with Lady Gregory, Yeats founds the Irish Literary Theatre, which later becomes the Abbey Theatre, and serves as its chief playwright until the movement is joined by John Millington Synge. His plays usually treat Irish legends and also reflect his fascination with mysticism and spiritualism. The Countess Cathleen (1892), The Land of Heart’s Desire (1894), Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), The King’s Threshold (1904), and Deirdre (1907) are among the best known.

After 1910, Yeats’s dramatic art takes a sharp turn toward a highly poetical, static, and esoteric style. His later plays are written for small audiences. They experiment with masks, dance, and music, and are profoundly influenced by the Japanese Noh plays. Although a convinced patriot, he deplores the hatred and the bigotry of the Nationalist movement, and his poetry is full of moving protests against it. He is appointed to the Irish Senate, Seanad Éireann, in 1922.

Yeats is one of the few writers whose greatest works are actually written after the award of the Nobel Prize. Whereas he receives the Prize chiefly for his dramatic works, his significance today rests on his lyric achievement. His poetry, especially the volumes The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), and Last Poems and Plays (1940), make him one of the outstanding and most influential twentieth-century poets writing in English. His recurrent themes are the contrast of art and life, masks, cyclical theories of life (the symbol of the winding stairs), and the ideal of beauty and ceremony contrasting with the hubbub of modern life.

Yeats dies at the age of 73 at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France, on January 28, 1939. He is buried after a discreet and private funeral at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. In September 1948, his body is moved to the churchyard of St. Columba’s Church, Drumcliff, County Sligo, on the Irish Naval Service corvette LÉ Macha.

(From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969)


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Premiere of “Cathleen ni Houlihan”

cathleen-ni-houlihan

Cathleen ni Houlihan, a one-act play written by William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory, is first performed in Dublin on April 2, 1902, with Maud Gonne in the leading role. It is first published in the October 1902 number of Samhain magazine.

The play centers on the Irish Rebellion of 1798. The play is startlingly nationalistic, in its last pages encouraging young men to sacrifice their lives for the heroine Cathleen ni Houlihan, who represents an independent and separate Irish state. The title character first appears as an old woman at the door of a family celebrating their son’s wedding. She describes her four “beautiful green fields,” representing the four provinces of Ireland, that have been unjustly taken from her. With little subtlety, she requests a blood sacrifice, declaring that “many a child will be born and there will be no father at the christening” and that “they that have red cheeks will have pale cheeks for my sake, and for all that, they will think they are well paid.” She convinces the future groom, Michael, to give up the wedding and go fight.

After the youth leaves the safety of his home to fight for her, she appears as an image of youth with “the walk of a queen,” professing of those who fight for her: “They shall be remembered forever, They shall be alive forever, They shall be speaking forever, The people shall hear them forever.”

Death is common during the time around the rising, but becoming a martyr is somethings that is admirable, so oftentimes people welcome death so they can create themselves a heroic memory. The martyrs will be remembered forever, which is why this theme is so ingrained into this play.

Cathleen ni Houlihan is such a simple play that contains many symbols and has the goal of convincing men to fight for Ireland. While the play is written about the rising of 1798, it is meant to inspire people for the 1916 Easter Rising. Throughout the whole play, there is constant reference to memory and its influence on the public. The men that die while fighting for Ireland are considered heroes, which is why memory and martyrdom are such important themes that are incorporated into works about revolution.

Cathleen ni Houlihan is about Irish Independence, but there are themes of martyrdom in other works, like the musicals about American Independence, Hamilton and 1776.

(Pictured: Scene from a production of “Cathleen ni Houlihan,” circa 1912)


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Birth of James Henry Cousins, Playwright & Actor

james-h-cousins

James Henry Cousins, Irish writer, playwright, actor, critic, editor, teacher and poet, is born in Belfast on July 22, 1873, a descendant of Huguenot refugees. He uses several pseudonyms including Mac Oisín and the Hindu name Jayaram.

Largely self-educated at night schools, Cousins works some time as a clerk and becomes private secretary and speechwriter to Sir Daniel Dixon, 1st Baronet, the Lord Mayor of Belfast. In 1897 he moves to Dublin where he becomes part of a literary circle which includes William Butler Yeats, George William Russell and James Joyce. It is believed that he serves as a model for the Little Chandler character in Joyce’s short story collection Dubliners.

Cousins is significantly influenced by Russell’s ability to reconcile mysticism with a pragmatic approach to social reforms and by the teachings of Helena Blavatsky. He has a lifelong interest in the paranormal and acts as reporter in several experiments carried out by William Fletcher Barrett, Professor of physics at the University of Dublin and one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research.

Cousins produces several books of poetry while in Ireland as well as acting in the first production of Cathleen ní Houlihan, under the stage name of H. Sproule, with the famous Irish revolutionary and beauty Maud Gonne in the title role. His plays are produced in the first years of the twentieth century in the Abbey Theatre, the most famous being “the Racing Lug”. After a dispute with W.B. Yeats, who objects to “too much Cousins,” the Irish National Theatre movement splits with two-thirds of the actors and writers siding with Cousins against Yeats.

Cousins also writes widely on the subject of Theosophy and in 1915 travels to India with the voyage fees paid for by Annie Besant, the President of the Theosophical Society. He spends most of the rest of his life in the sub-continent, apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Keio University in Tokyo and another lecturing in New York. Toward the end of his life, he converts to Hinduism. At the core of Cousins’s engagement with Indian culture is a firm belief in the “shared sensibilities between Celtic and Oriental peoples.”

While in India he becomes friendly with many key Indian personalities including poet Rabindranath Tagore, Indian classical dancer Rukmini Devi Arundale, painter Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Mahatma Gandhi. He is the person who brings change into the life of poetry of the great renowned Kannada poet and writer Kuvempu. He writes a joint autobiography with his wife Margaret Elizabeth Cousins, a suffragette and one of the co-founders of the Irish Women’s Franchise League and All India Women’s Conference (AIWC).

In his The Future Poetry Sri Aurobindo acclaims Cousins’ New Ways in English Literature as “literary criticism, which is of the first order, at once discerning and suggestive, criticism which forces us both to see and think.” He also acknowledges that he learned to intuit deeper being alerted by Cousins’ criticisms of his poems. In 1920 Cousins comes to Pondicherry to meet the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

James Cousins dies on February 20, 1956, in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India at the age of 82.


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Birth of William Butler Yeats, Poet & Nobel Prize Winner

william-butler-yeats

William Butler Yeats, one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, is born in Sandymount, County Dublin on June 13, 1865.

Yeats is the oldest child of John Butler Yeats and Susan Mary Pollexfen. Although John trained as a lawyer, he abandons the law for art soon after his first son is born. Yeats spends much of his early years in London, where his father is studying art, but frequently returns to Ireland.

In the mid-1880s, Yeats pursues his own interest in art as a student at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. Following the publication of his poems in the Dublin University Review in 1885, he soon abandons art school for other pursuits.

After returning to London in the late 1880s, Yeats meets writers Oscar Wilde, Lionel Johnson and George Bernard Shaw. He also becomes acquainted with Maud Gonne, a supporter of Irish independence. This revolutionary woman serves as a muse for Yeats for years. He even proposes marriage to her several times, but she turns him down. He dedicates his 1892 drama The Countess Cathleen to her.

Around this time, Yeats founds the Rhymers’ Club poetry group with Ernest Rhys. He also joins the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization that explores topics related to the occult and mysticism. While he is fascinated with otherworldly elements, Yeats’s interest in Ireland, especially its folktales, fuels much of his output. The title work of The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889) draws from the story of a mythic Irish hero.

In addition to his poetry, Yeats devotes significant energy to writing plays. He teams with Lady Gregory to develop works for the Irish stage, the two collaborating for the 1902 production of Cathleen ni Houlihan. Around that time, he helps found the Irish National Theatre Society, serving as its president and co-director, with Lady Gregory and John Millington Synge. More works soon follow, including On Baile’s Strand, Deirdre and At the Hawk’s Well.

Following his marriage to Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1917, Yeats begins a new creative period through experiments with automatic writing. The newlyweds sit together for writing sessions they believe to be guided by forces from the spirit world, through which Yeats formulates intricate theories of human nature and history. They soon have two children, daughter Anne and son Michael.

Yeats then becomes a political figure in the new Irish Free State, serving as a senator for six years beginning in 1922. The following year, he receives an important accolade for his writing as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to the official Nobel Prize website, he is selected “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”

Yeats continues to write until his death. Some of his important later works include The Wild Swans at Coole (1917), A Vision (1925), The Tower (1928) and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932). He dies on January 28, 1939, at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France. He is buried after a discreet and private funeral at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. In September 1948, his body is moved to the churchyard of St. Columba’s Church, Drumcliff, County Sligo, on the Irish Naval Service corvette LÉ Macha.

The publication of Last Poems and Two Plays shortly after his death further cements his legacy as a leading poet and playwright.


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Death of William Butler Yeats

william-butler-yeats

William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature, dies on January 28, 1939, at the Hôtel Idéal Séjour, in Menton, France.

Yeats is born in Sandymount, County Dublin, on June 13, 1865, the oldest child of John Butler Yeats and Susan Mary Pollexfen. Although John trains as a lawyer, he abandons the law for art soon after his first son is born. Yeats spends much of his early years in London, where his father is studying art, but frequently returns to Ireland as well.

In the mid-1880s, Yeats pursues his own interest in art as a student at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. Following the publication of his poems in the Dublin University Review in 1885, he soon abandoned art school for other pursuits.

After returning to London in the late 1880s, Yeats meets writers Oscar Wilde, Lionel Johnson, and George Bernard Shaw. He also becomes acquainted with Maud Gonne, a supporter of Irish independence. This revolutionary woman serves as a muse for Yeats for years. He even proposes marriage to her several times, but she turns him down. He dedicates his 1892 drama The Countess Kathleen to her.

Around this time, Yeats founds the Rhymers’ Club poetry group with Ernest Rhys. He also joins the Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization that explores topics related to the occult and mysticism. While he is fascinated with otherworldly elements, Yeats’s interest in Ireland, especially its folktales, fuels much of his output. The title work of The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems (1889) draws from the story of a mythic Irish hero.

In addition to his poetry, Yeats devotes significant energy to writing plays. He teams with Lady Gregory to develop works for the Irish stage, the two collaborating for the 1902 production of Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Around that time, Yeats helps found the Irish National Theatre Society with Lady Gregory and John Millington Synge, serving as its president and co-director. More works soon follow, including On Baile’s Strand, Deirdre, and At the Hawk’s Well.

Following his marriage to Georgie Hyde-Lees in 1917, Yeats begins a new creative period through experiments with automatic writing. The newlyweds sit together for writing sessions they believe to be guided by forces from the spirit world, through which Yeats formulates intricate theories of human nature and history. They soon have two children, daughter Anne and son Michael.

Yeats then becomes a political figure in the new Irish Free State, serving as a senator for six years beginning in 1922. The following year, he receives an important accolade for his writing as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to the official Nobel Prize website, Yeats is selected “for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.”

Yeats continues to write until his death. Some of his important later works include The Wild Swans at Coole (1917), A Vision (1925), The Tower (1928) and Words for Music Perhaps and Other Poems (1932). Yeats passes away on January 28, 1939, at the Hôtel Idéal Beauséjour near Menton, France. He is buried after a discreet and private funeral at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The publication of Last Poems and Plays and Two Plays shortly after his death further cements his legacy as a leading poet and playwright.

In September 1948, Yeats’ body is moved to the churchyard of St. Columba’s Church, Drumcliff, County Sligo, on the Irish Naval Service corvette LÉ Macha.