The Abbey Theatre

Abstract

To write about the Abbey Theatre is, for me, almost an act of autobiography. My father, Frank Fay, was one of the founders, with his brother Willie, and the other Willy (Yeats) and Lady G. From the strictest historical point of view I suppose that neither Yeats nor Lady Gregory was a ‘founder’. They came in, as did Miss Horniman, after the amateur group started by the Fay brothers had been going quite a while and had taken over from the Irish Literary Theatre with such important plays as AE [George Russell]’s Deirdre , Yeats’ Kathleen Ni Houlihan and a whole series of plays including one in Irish at the Camden Street Theatre which had been adapted from some sort of warehouse. When the company and its theatre were thoroughly well established (at the Abbey, with Miss Horniman’s money) Frank and his brother Willie Fay left in 1908 after a stupid quarrel contrived by lesser persons who thought the Fays were getting too big for their boots.¹

Ireland of the Welcomes (Dublin), 15 (July–Aug 1966), 28–32.