Folio from Lady Gregory’s Notebook
Lady Augusta Gregory (1852-1932) lived at Coole Park in Gort, County Galway and is widely associated today with the Irish literary revival at the turn of the 20th Century.
Together with William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1904. She had a keen interest in folklore and learned the Irish language so that she could access more freely many ancient texts. She wrote 27 plays and the page featured here is from one of them, ‘Cuchulain of Muirthemne’, which Yeats called ‘The best book that ever came out of Ireland’.
Lady Gregory’s close circle of literary friends included J M Synge, W B Yeats, Jack Yeats, George Russell (AE), Douglas Hyde, Sean O’Casey and George Bernard Shaw. Coole Park was the meeting place for these artistic people and together they spearheaded an Irish Literary and Cultural Revival.
Ref: 2000.100
