Exceptional Travel Writing
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The
theatre's first directors were Yeats himself and his lifelong friend
and the inspiration of so many of his splendid poems, Lady Gregory.
Dramatists whose plays were to make the Abbey Theatre famous all over
the world include: John Synge, Sean O'Casey and Lennox Robinson. Robinson succeeded Yeats as manager in 1910 and became the theater's director in 1923. In 1951 the theatre burned down and the company played in the Queen's Theatre until the rebuilt Abbey was opened in 1966. |
The great cathedral of St. Patrick's in Patrick Street was restored between the years 1864 and 1869. The original church was built in 1191 on the site of a pre-Norman church and was granted cathedral status in 1213. The grave of Jonathan Swift is in the south aisle and Swift's own Latin epigraph, along with a translation by Yeats and lines by Alexander Pope, is over the door of the robing-room. St. Patrick's hospital in Bow Lane, James Street, has an interesting collection of Swift memorabilia. The hospital, now a psychiatric center, was founded by Sift in 1749. |
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Charlemont House, in Palace Row, on the north side of Parnell Square, was formerly the mansion of the Earl of Charlemont. Since 1930 it has functioned as the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art and features paintings by "AE" (George William Russell), Lady Gregory and Douglas Hyde. In Yeats' poem, "The Municipal Gallery Re-visited," he wrote:
The poem is on sale in the gallery bookshop.".... come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;"
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The National Gallery in Merrion Square was erected in memory of William Dargan (1799-1867) who was a benefactor of the arts. |
Playwright
George Bernard Shaw, whose statue by Troubetzkoy stands near the entrance,
bequeathed one third of his estate to the gallery. The National Gallery
includes portraits of Irish writers James Joyce, George Moore James Stephens
and W.B. Yeats.
Finally, the Royal Irish Academy, Academy House, 19 Dawson Street, is
Ireland's foremost-learned society. The library houses a noteworthy collection
of Irish manuscripts including the Cathac, a sixth to seventh century
manuscript of the Psalter, possibly by St. Columcille; Lebor na Huidre,
the Book of the Dun Cow, an 11th-12th century codex (a stitched manuscript)
and the Stowe Missal, a Mass book from about the eighth or ninth century.
DUBLIN'S
LITERARY HERITAGE
was
first published in the Kelowna Capital News
