[Introduction:] No drama in Gaelic society, in spite of references to entertainments in Banqueting Hall of Tara (Vallancey, De Reb. Hib., iii, 529), citing Cleasamhnaigh, ‘jesters’, and Druith Righeadh, ‘royal comedians’ [?or druids?].

Expugnatio Hibernica chp XXXIII suggests that drama arrived in some form with the Normans, Henry spending Christmas in Dublin and teaching his subjects to ‘eat crane’s flesh and to take their part in miracle plays, masques, mummeries and tournaments.’

A Dublin decree of 1366, discovered by Aubrey Gwynn [‘The Origins of Anglo-Irish Drama’, in Studies, 1939, 268] issued by Archb. Minot in Kilkenny expressly forbids ‘theatrical games and frivolous spectacles’ under pain of exCrticismunication of priests participating. [3]

The Red Book of Ossory [Kilkenny] refers to 60 songs composed by the Bishop as preferable to others called ‘shameful theatrical and wordly songs’, of which short examples in English and French are quoted. Early 14th c.

In the Land of Cockayne the Friars of Kildare are satirised ‘because they appear to have made theatrical representations in dumb show of some of the incidents in the Bible, notably the Crucifixion [for] unlettered audience’ (remarks quoted from Seymour).

Marsh’s Library holds a copy of a Processional of the 3 Mary’s to the tomb of Christ, but it is not certain that it was performed in Dublin.

The only copy of the earliest Morality play known to exist was found written on the black spaces of the Roll of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, Dublin [TCD] 1343], Irish Record Office, Christ Church Coll. Published 1891 as James Mill, ed. The Pride of Life.

The Play of the Sacrament, late 15th c., among Madden MSS at TCD (MS.F.V.20). Also Abraham’s Sacrifice (MS.D.IV.18)

For religious pageants, see Gilbert’s Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin. A document called The Chain Book of the City of Dublin has for 1498 an account of expenses for different guild’s regalia in the pageant for the Corpus Christi Procession, including: Adam and Eve [glovers]; Cain and Abel [‘corvisors’]; Abraham and Isaac [weavers]; Noah with his ship [mariners, vynters, shipcarpenters and ‘samountakers’]; Joseph, Mary, and a camel [skinners, carpenters, tanners, and ‘browders’]; ‘the 3 Kings of Collynn ridyng worshupfully, with the offerance, with a sterr afor them’; shepards and an angel singing Gloria; Pilate; Annas and Caiphas; Arthur and his Knights [courtiers]; 12 Apostles [fishers]; Prophets [merchants]; tormenters [butchers]; the Nine Worthies [Mayor and his company of bachelors]; and St.George and his dragoun.

Ware records that a stage was erected at Hoggen Green for the Lord Lieutenant in 1528 [errat. 1582, but see Gilbert, 1538]. Harris finds a record of The Nine Worthies played in 1541.

John Bale, app. Bishop of Ossory, 2.2.1553; plays at Market Cross, Kilkenny; The Three Lawes (1538, printed 1580); Kinge Johan (written before 1548). Mod. publication as The Dramatic Works of John Bale, ed. John S. Farmer (1907), in the Early English Dramatists series. Copper estimates that he wrote ninety-one plays.

An act of 1560 fining blasphemous or non-doctrinal interpretations on the Feast of St. John; An act fining ‘Crticismon players of enter-ludes’, and others, 1634-35. [11]

Payments made to players, viz ‘queen an Earl of Essex players’, in Dublin 1589; and like at Youghal 1615.

Gorboduc done at Dublin Castle before Blount, Lord Mountjoy, 7th Sept. 1601, according to the old playbill remembered by Ogilby and mentioned in Chetwood.

Chetwood: ‘This Kingdom of Ireland, is one of the last in Europe where established theatres were erected; yet I am assur’d one of the first whose Bards, or Poets have celebrated in verse the illustrious Actions of their Monarchs, nor any Nation in the world where Poetry and Poets were in such high esteem. Every ancient and noble family hd one in their Household and their Kings their poets Laureats, as we have in England but long, long before the English invaded Ireland.’ General History, p. 49. [15, n.42]

Red Book of Kilkenny records payment for ‘morries and players of the Resurrection’, in 1610; while on 13 Jan. 1631, money is paid to William Causey for ‘teaching to write and read and instructing the children of the natives for the play on Corpus Christi day’. [12]

Part 1

Chapter I: John Ogilby’s Werburgh St. Theatre, 1637-41

Shirley’s The Royal Master printed 1638 ‘as it was acted in the new Theatre in Dublin.’ Conventional Elizabethan tradition. Cf., ‘Sources for Shirley’s St. Patrick’, PMLA, vol 48 p.806; vol 51, p.302.

Calderon, El Purgatorio de San Patricio … the conversion of the Irish by St. Patrick [treated as] a great glory for the Church. [19]

Shirley’s other plays at Werburgh St. were The Constant Maid; The Gentlemen of Venice; The Politician; St Alban’s, and Look to the Ladies.

Ogilby’s narrow escape from death at Rathfarnham related in Aubrey.

Chapter II: Sir John Denham

Burkhead: Cola’s Miserie, never acted; poor construction; first-hand experience of 1641; printed 1645. [see chap. vi, infra.]

The Famous History of Captain Thomas Stuck[e]ley, an English play by numerous hands, 1570 (printed 1605), treats of Shane O’Neill’s attack on Dundalk of 1565, and contains two scenes with char. O’Neill, O’Hanlon, and Mackener. The play is published in The School of Shakespear, ed. Richard Simpson, vol. i. [And see CG Duggan, The Stage Irishman, 19327, pp.51-57.]

Burnell: Landgartha - passed over without so much as a date by Kavanagh, and called ‘a very mild affair from the patriotic pointof view.’ [24] [see Chap. V, infra.]

Langbaine on Sir John Denham: ‘before the foggy air of that climate could influence, or in any way adulerate his Mind, he was brought from thence.’ (Dramatic Poets). Aubrey agrees with Langbaine in calling him ‘the dreamingst young fellow’ who, at college, ‘would game extremely’ and ‘was rooked by gamesters’. Aubrey also tells how he when he was a student a Lincoln’s Inn, he went out at night to ‘blott out all the signes betweeen Temple-barre and Charing-cross, which made great confusion the next day … ‘ vol i, p.220. Hence, a kind of anti-topographical jape.

Edmund Waller: ‘he broke out like the Irish rebellion three score thousand strong, when nobody was aware, or in the least expecting it.’ Quoted in Athen. Oxon, Anthony a Wood.

He succeeded Inigo Jones, and had Christopher Wren as his deputy, while Charles II’s surveyor of his majesty’s builings. [27]

The Sophy (Blackfriars 1641, printed 1642); founded on Herbert’s Travels (i.e., Thomas A. Herbert, Travels in Persia, 1627-29. In no way relates to Ireland.

Chapter IV: Richard Flecknoe, d.1678

Southey: ‘not the despicable writer that one might suppose him to be from the niche in which his mighty enemy has placed him.’ [as Dryden’s King of Dullness]. From MacFlecknoe: ‘In prose and verse was own’d without dispute/Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute.’

In a note to Pope’s Dunciad (1751), which opens with the lines: ‘High on the gorgeous seat that far outshone/Henley’s gilt tub, or Flecknoe’s Irish throne ..’, he is referred to as an irish priest.

A Catholic, he placed aside what he called ‘the mechanic part of Priesthood’; visited by Andrew Marvell in Rome in 1645, writing satirical verses on his poetic and musical ineptitude.

The evidence of his death date is in a poem of Dryden’s, dedicating his Limberham to Lord Vaughan, where he compares himself for ‘worst poet’ in the world with Flecknoe, ‘he of scandalous memory, who left it last.’ Walter Scott characterised him in his edition of Dryden as ‘fitted for an incorrigible scribbler, by a happy fund of self-satisfaction, upon which neither the censures of criticism nor the united hisses of a whole nation could make the slightest impression.’

Flecknoe’s works: Love’s Dominion, tragi-com. (LIF 1664) 1654; reissued in 1664 under the title Love’s Kingdom and printed with prefixed Discourse of the English Stage, intended as a pattern for the reformed stage. It was through his criticism of theatrical immorality that Flecknoe incurred the enmity of Dryden. Langbaine records that, whatever about it’s ‘excellent Morality’ and its adherence to the three unities, ‘it had the misfortune to be damned by the audience.’

The Discourse, based on Longinus and Aristotle’s didactic theory of art, shows a moderate repugnance at the way the best of recreations is turned into the worst, and while admitting that the dramatist is a good fellow who may be allowed ‘to take a chearful cup to whet his wits’ should be

constrainted to represent moral plots rendering ‘Folly ridiculous, Vice odious, and Vertue and Noblenesse aimiable and lovely.’ The essay includes homage to Charles II. Reprinted in JE Spingarn’s Critical Essays of 17th c. vol. ii, 91-96. WORKS The Marriage of Oceanus and Brittania, masque, 1659 (non extant); Erminia or The Fair and Vertuous Lady, tragi-com. (unacted), 1661, 1665; contains preface castigating theatre management; The Demoiselles a La Mode, com. (unacted) 1667; plot and subplot taken from Moliere’s Les Precieuses Ridicules, and L’Ecole des Femmes and the Two Naturals from L’Ecole des Maris.

Chapter V: Henry Burnell

Burnell’s Landgartha: Danish-Norwegian plot, moralising about the female virtues of Landgartha. Reyner, King of Denmark, invades Norway, and allies with Landgartha against Trolla, the King of Swedland, who dies in single combat with Landagartha; seeing her fight, Reyner falls in love with her; she has ‘vow’d Chastity/Unto the Gods’; Reyner marries her, but once married deserts her and returns to Denmark, where he has a mistress, Vraca; his throne in Denmark is threatened by a competitor; Landgartha arrives to save him, and Reyner repents; Vraca too eventually comes round to the way of virtue and promises to by ‘future good’ to ‘expiate offence’.

The Preface enjoins ‘Chastity and other vertues joyn’d to beauty, vertue single and manly fortitude’ and is addressed to ‘all faire, indifferent faire, vertuous, that are not faire and magnanimous Ladies.’

Chapter VI; Henry Burkhead, fl. 1645

A Tragedy of Cola’s Furie, or Lirenda’s Miserie (Kilkenny, M,DC,XLVI); Cola is a personification of the wickedness of England. Kavanagh finds it difficult to conceive what prompted Burkhead to attempt to write a play unless it be the influence of Shirley’s St. Patrick ..’ but this silly vacuity of thought is answered by Patricia Coughlan’s reading of the play in the context of the Kilkenny Confederation.

The characters are: Theodoric=Owen Ruadh O’Neill; Pitho=Sir William Parsons; Berosus=Sir John Borlase; Guyroa=Lord Maguire; Cola=Sir Charles Coote; Osirus=Ormonde; Meneus=Lord Montgarret or Col. Mohoun; Col. Cranbrick=Crawford. Bibl. See The Stage Irishman, Duggan, pp67-69.

Chapter VII: Latin Plays (the Jesuits)

Titus, or the Palme of Christian Courage, to be exhibited by the Schollars of the Society of Jesus at Kilkenny, Anno Domini 1644. Only the playbill remains, in the Bradshaw Collection. The bill includes a summary of the argument and the acts, with interludes a la Renaissance. A noble Gentleman, more illustrious for his Christian courage than parentage’ impresses the King of Bungo by the honesty with which he refuses all sleights to make him abandon his religion, leading the King to bestow on him the ‘freedom of his religion’. ‘This history is compendiously set downe by Father Francis Solier of the Society of Jesus in the 18 boookeof his Ecclesiasticall historie of Japonia, and yeare of our Lord 1620.’

Among the summary notes are: ‘Idolatrie stormes at her expulsion out of Japonia … the Emperor … declareth his affection towards the Idolls … the Bongos … rage against the Christians … implore aids of the triumphant Church … edict against Christians … titus … biddeth farewell to his wife and children … the King of Bungo … endevors … to pervert Titus … Titus his wife and familie [comforted] by the militant church … S. Francis Xavierus appeares and encourageth them … the King of Bungo menaceth death … [various wiles to pevert the children] … led from prison … a superficiall command given to kill them in his presence … Divine Providence declarath God’s care … the King amazed at this constancie dismisseth them, freedome of Religion granted, with their lives and estates.

One Fr. Stephen Gelosse introduced drama in New Ross, c.1662.

Part 2

Chapter 1: Smock Alley

NB. The next performance after Pompey took place on 9 May 1663. It is not stated what was the name of the play produced, but it is possible tht it may have been Richard Head’s Hic et Ubique or The Humours of Dublin … printed in 1663 ‘as it was acted privately.’ Head was an Irishman. [61]

Gen. bibl.: MS S.P., 63 (State Papers Ireland) vol 304, no. 171 Lon. Publ. Rec. Off. [Stockwell]; MMS C 66 Patent Roll, 13 Charles Pt. 40 No 39, Publ. Rec. Off., Lond. [do.]; Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniae, vol. 1, pt. ii, p. 93; Letters from Orinda to Poliarchus; Mercurias Publicas, Oct. 21 1662; Dorothy Caulfield, Corneille and Racine in England (1904); John Dunton, The Dublin Scuffle (1699); Hughes, The Pre-Victorian Drama in Dublin (gives no references).

Chapter 2: Dramatic Trends

Chapter 3: Boyle, Lord Orrery

His grandson, Charles Boyle, wrote a comedy of no merit entitled As You Find It (CIF April 28 1703), of which Genest says: ‘dull … the poet … has forgotten the plot … the dialogue is sensible.’

Chapter 4: Thomas Southerne [not copied]

Chapter 5: William Congreve [not copied]

Chapter 6: Nahum Tate

Remembered for his poetical version of the Psalms, he was also a dramatist: Brutus of Alba or the Enchanted Lovers (DG July 1678); The Loyal General (DG Dec 1679); The Sicilian Usurper, or the History of Richard the Second (DL 1681); The History of King Lear (DG March 1681); The Ingratitude of a Crticismon-wealth or the Fall of Caius Martius Coriolanus (DL Dec. 1681); A Duke and No Duke (DL 1684); The Island Princess (DL April 1687); Injur’d Love or the Cruel Husband (unacted), 1707; Dido and Aeneas (1688-90).

Son of ‘Faithful Teate’, a clergyman at Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan, who bretrayed the insurgents of 1641 and had to leave Cavan [??]. b. Dublin. ‘poor and despised’ (Baker); but poet laureate in 1692. Probably lost that post to Nicholas Rowe, and ‘died in the Mint’ (Johnson, et al.).

Chapter 7: Nicholas Brady

The Rape, or the Innocent Imposter (1692); b. Bandon, Co. Cork.

Chapter 8: Thomas Duffet

The Spanish Rogue, dedicated to Nell Gwyn, ‘contains 3 lines which one would hardly have expected from the mouth of a woman’ (Genest).

The Empress of Morocco was a burlesque of Settle’s play of that title; instead of Settle’s nobles we are given lowly characters: Epistemon tells Pantgruel that hin Hades he saw Cleopatra hawking onions. [168]. The Amorous Old Woman is set in Pisa.

The Mock Tempest, of which Langbaine said: ‘writ on purpose to draw company from the other theatre, where there was great resort about that time to see tht reviv’d Comedy call’d the Tempest, then much in vogue.’ He also relates that when acted in Dublin ‘several ladies and persons of the best quaity left the house: such ribaldry pleasing none but the rabble.’ Duffett evidently had an amazing capacity to find a double-entendre, but is finally dismissed by Langbaine as a ‘wit of the third rate.’ He was probably born Duffy.

Chapter 9: Richard Head (1637-1685)

Biographies in William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets; in Aubrey’s Brief Lives (with d. at 1676); Dram. Poets; and Baker’s Biographia Dram.

Born Ireland, the son of a English clergyman killed in the 1641 Rebellion, he went to Oxford, trained as a Latin bookseller; married, set up for himself; turned to poetry, and to gaming; moved to Ireland and there wrote Hic Et Ubique ‘which gained him general esteem for the worth thereof [1661-2]. And coming over into England had it printed, dedicating it to the Duke of Monmouth’ (from Winstanley, who knew him.)

Winstanley says he was drowned in 1686 crossing to the Isle of Wight.

Hic et Ubique: performed in private owing to its gross vulgarity, the grossest passages being excluded from the printed ed. of 1663. A party of Longdon adventurers arrives in Dublin: Hope-well, Banrupt, Contriver, and Trust-all (Jonsonian personifications) At Holyhead, they meet Phantastic and Hic et Ubqiue. the plot concerns largely the misfortune of Col Kil-tory, a miles gloriosus, signing his property to a betrothed who turns out to be Mrs Hope-well. Sue Pouch, the land-lady, a ‘reformed’ puritan turned bawd documents social life in the 17th c. when Ireland was the Mecca for English adventurers. Prose, with Latin tags, and some heroic verse. The stage-Irishman is called Patrick, and speaks the maximum of obscenity.

Thomas Doggett: The Country Wake (LIF May 1696) 1696; later altered into ballad farce as Flora, or Hob in the Well.

Part 3

Chapter 1: 1700-58

Ashbury-Sheridan regimes.

Chapter 2: Dramatic Trends

This chapter contains a list performances at Smock Alley theatre, 1704-50. [190-191].

Chapter 3: George Farquhar [not copied]

Chapter 4: Susannah Centlivre

PK makes an egregious error when he cites an instance of Centlivre’s feminism as a caricature on the blue-stocking ladies of the day (Mrs. Mary Astell), remarking: ‘it is an amusing sidelight on Mrs Centlivre’s character that she, who had suffered because of anti-feminist feeling, subscibred to that movement for the sake of popularity.’ In the passage quoted, Valeria is dissecting a fly, causing the ladies to exclaim: ‘Ridiculous learning … Philosophy suits our sex as Jack-Boots would do.’ to which Valeria replies: ‘Custom would bring them as much in Fashion as Furbeloes, and Practice would make us as valient as e’er a Hero of them all: the Resolution of the Mind - Nothing can enslave that.’ (The Basset Table, II, i.) [240]

Hazlitt: ‘The plot never stands still; the situations succeed one another like the chagnes of machinery in a pantomime. The nice dovetailing of the incidents and cross reading in the situations supply the place of any great force of wit and sentiment. The time for the entrance of each person on the stage is the moment when they are leasted wanted, and when their arrival makes them either themselves or somebody else look as foolish as possible. The laughableness of [The Busy Body] depend[s] on a brilliant series of mistimed exits and entrances. Marplot is the whimsical hero of the peice, and a standing memoiral of unmeaning vivacity and assiduous impertinence. (Lectures on the English Comic Writers)

Chapter 5: Richard Steele

b. Dublin 1672; met Addison at school in England; Oxford, 1689; Coldstream Guards as a private, and an officer about 1700. Wrote The Christian Hero (1701) intended for the reformation of his own life; The Funeral or Grief a la Mode (1702); The Election of Gotham (1703), not extant; The Lying Lovers (1703); The Tender Husband (1705), with bits by Addison; started the Tatler in 1709, and returned to playwrighting with The Conscious Lovers (1722); knighted in 1715.

John Dennis sneered at his Irish birth: ‘He is gentleman born, witness himself, of very honorable family; certainly a very ancient one, for his ancestors flourished in Tipperary long before the English were set foot in Ireland. He has testimony of this more authentic that the Herald’s office, or any human testimony. For God has marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped his native country on his face, his understanding, his writings, his actions, his passions and above all his vanity. The Hibernian Brogue is still upon all these though long habit and length of days have worn it off his tongue. (Character and Conduct of Sir John Edgar.)

Dennis’s attack on Steele’s central character and himself: ‘this man of conscience and of religion is as arrant a hypocrite as a certain author.’ He found the sentiments false and absurd, the dialogue awkward, and the diction ‘barbarous and too often Hibernian.’ (Pamphlet, A Defence of Sir Foppling Flutter).

Hazlitt wrote: The comedies of Steele were the first that were written expressly with a view not to imitate the manners but to reform the morals of the age … the author always on his good behaviour … homilies in dialogue (Comic Writers).

NOTE: ftn. The Conscious Lovers was the first play in the first actual playhouse in America, viz., Hallam’s Nassau St., New York, Sept. 17 1753. See History of the New York Stage, T. A. Brown.

Chapter 6: Minor Writers 1700-1750

Treated as minor dramatists in this chapter are William Philips, Owen Swiney, John Michelburne, Robert Ashton, Charles Molloy, James Sterling and Matthew Concanen; Mary Davys; Swift; Samuel Madden; Charles Coffey; James Darcy; James Ayres; Samuel Davey; Dr Michael Clancy; Laetitia Pilkington; thomas Sheridan; Henry Brook; and John Cunningham.

William Philips (d. 1734); b. Londonderry; ed. TCD. Army Captain; Wincop’s Cat. (A Compleat List of all English Dramatic Poets) has an independent entry for one Captain Philips who wrote Hibernia Freed, but actually the same. He took a Crticismission after he wrote his first play.

Works: The Revengeful Queen (DL 1698); St. Stephen’s Green or The Generous Lovers (Dublin TR 1700); Hibernia Freed (LIF 13 Feb 1722); Belisarius (LIF 14 April, 1724).

St Stephen’s Green is Irish in title only; chars. incl. Feignyouth, Wormwood, Vanity, and Frickwell; love intrigue. Poor, conventional comedy, attended by modest preface.

Hibernia Freed ded. Henry O’Brien, Earl of Thomond. Turgesius, the Danish king, has reduced Ireland; O’Neill comes to the assistance of O’Brien whose dg. Sabina he loves; Sabina rejects advances from Turgesius, who demands her and 14 virgins in revenge; O’Neill and other young men dress as the virgins and kill their ravishers in the Danish Camp; Turgesius is led off, and Hibernia is freed.

Kavanagh Crticisments: Philips patriotism was not really sincere [as is revealed when Turgesius is made to say: ‘another nation shall revenge my death’, and an encomium of England by the bard Eugenius follows.

Sterling and Concanen: friends, went to England together; the former wrote The Rival Generals, printed Dublin and London ‘as it was acted at the Theatre Royal in Dublin, and also The Parricide (Goodman’s Fields th. Jan 1735). In the ded. to The Rival Generals, Sterling claims it was he who ‘first awaked the Irish muse to Tragedy’ (overlooking Shadwell); while Concanen’s congratulatory verses refer to his own Wexford Wells (Dublin 7 Nov. 1729) [‘On Comic Pinions humble Flights explor’d/trifled in song, nor to the Buskin soar’d.’]

Sterling’s preface: ‘Long had our Stage, on foreign Refuse fed’/to a proud Mistress bow’d her servile Head;/Her leavings treasur’d up, and curs’d the Land/With broken Scraps of wit at Second Hand;/While not one Muse arose in our Defence,/with scarce one native Note our Island rung;/Her Bards untuneful, and her Harps unstrung;/By you her home-born Rage displays/Inspired to merit independent Praise.’

Concanen occurs in The Dunciad (1729), ii, 299-304, as a resulting of a slighting reference.

Mary Davys, fl.1756; a friend of Swift; The Northern Heiress or the Humours of York (LIF April 1716) 1725, described as more a comedy of intrigue than of manners, with some sharp wit; and The Self Rival, unacted (1725).

Samuel Madden’s preface to Themistocles, The Lover of his Country (LIF Feb 1728/9) refers to the ‘hearty zeal’ with this ‘Mr Southerne (my old acquaintance and worthy Friend) was pleased to reCrticismend it, wherever he came.’ The play is on the theme of the repentent tyrant ‘who having stabb’d his Country, strove too late/to heal her wounds, and perish’d in the Strife.’ Biographia Dramatica records that he left another play in the keeping of Thomas Sheridan, not found and probably extinct. Ftn. it was produced 9 times (see Nicoll, Early 18th c. Drama).

Charles Coffey, d. 1745; b. Ireland; deformed; The Beggar’s Wedding (Smock alley, 24 March 1729), ballad opera; produced as one-act in Drury lane, 13 June 1729 as Phebe or The Beggar’s Wedding; theme - mistaken off-spring; the Devil Upon Two Sticks, or the Country Beau (DL 16 april 1728), ballad opera.

Best piece, The Devil to Pay, or The Wives Metapmorhos’d (DL 6 aug 1731), from Jevon’s The Devil of a Wife. It ran 28 nights first time; and was acted as many as 25 p.a. down to the 19th c. (Nicoll). Cut down to 3 acts as giving offence to non-conformists by Theophilus Cibber.

Other works: Southwork Fair or the Sheep-Shearing (S-F-, 1729), ballad opera; The Female Parson or Beau in the Sudds (Hay, 27 Apr 1730), ballad opera; A Wife and No wife, farce, never acted (1732); The Boarding School or the Sham Captain (DL 29 Jan 1733), ballad opera borrowed from D’Urfey; The Merry Cobbler or the Second Part of the Devil to pay (DL 6 May 1735) acted ‘one night … with no applause’ (from its preface).

James Darcy, two tragedies, one extant: Love and Ambition (Smock Alley Dec 1731), a heroic play; Arabia; the second, The Orphan of Venice (produced 1749), extinct.

William Havard, 1710-78; son of Dubliner vintner; his King Charles I (LIF Mar 1736/7, Shakespearean, portraying Cromwell as ambitious tyrant. the preface admits altering history to make an ending full of pathos. Lord Chesterfield alludes to it in his Speech in the House of Lords against the Bill for Licensing all Dramatic Performances, 1749 (and see Biog. Dram., ii, 92.): ‘a most tragical story was brought upon the stage, a catastrophy too recent, too melancholy, and of too solemn a nature to be heard of anywhere but from the pulpit.’

Scanderbeg (Goodman’s Fields, Mar 1732), 1733, and Regulus (DL Feb. 1743/4, are both classical heroic tragi-comedies, with boastful heroes and distressed lovers, the later based on Livy. His last play, The Elopement (DL April 1763), not published.

James Ayres, ed. TCD: Sancho at Court, or the Mock Governor, opera-comedy, DL 1742; The Kiss Accepted and Returned (Hay. Apr. 1744), not printed.

Samuel Davey, an Irish actor; The Treacherous Husband, trag., [pub. 1737] and Whittington and his Cat, opera, both at Smock Alley in 1739, ‘for the benefit of the author, who luckily is not recorded, nor can I find the pieces were ever repeated’ (Hitchcock).

Michael Clancy, d. 1760; blind in 1737; Smock alley trag., Tamar, Prince of Nublia (1739), limited success and not printed; The Sharpers (Smock alley Jan 1737/8, based on exploits of Col. Chartres, it was noticed by Swift, who wrote: ‘I read it carefully with much pleasure, on account of the characters and the moral. I have no interest with the people of the playhouse, else I should be glad to reCrticismend it to them’ (see Memoirs of Dr. Michael Clancy, MD (1750). Hermon Prince of Chorea, or the extravagant Zealot, a heroic play set in Pekin, advertised in General Advertiser 14 Apr. 1746, ‘as acted in Ireland’. Clancy acted Tiresius in Dryden and Nat. Lee’s Oedipus for his own benefit at Drury Lane.

Laetitia Pilkington, 1712-59; The Turkish Court or the London Prentice (Capel St., 1748), sat. burl.; The Roman Father, trag., printed in Memoirs. Virginia Woolf entered a plea in defence of L. Pilkington in The Crticismon Reader, 1st ser., (1929), pp.160-67.

Thomas Sheridan the Elder; first English trans. of Philoctetes of Sophicles, 1725; his son theatre manager, wrote The Brave Irishman, or Captain O’Blunder (Dublin 1738), printed 1748, which shows the Irishman in a favorable light as carrying on through all his blunders; scenes based on Moliere’s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac; according to Baker, Dram. Biog., it was a farce written while at college and rebuilt from the memories of the actors - with additions of their own; Sheridan also altered plays of Shakespeare.

Henry Brooke, 1703-83; Gustavus Vasa, the Deliverer of his Country (TR Aungier St., 1741), 1739; Earl of Westmoreland (Aungier St., 8 Feb 1741/2), 1778; Earl of Essex (Smock Alley, May 1750), 1761; Anthony and Cleopatra, unacted (1778); The Imposter, unacted (1771); Cymbeline, unacted (1778); Montezuma, unacted (1778); The Vestal Virgin, unacted (1778). Comedies, The Contending Brothers, unacted (1778); The Charitable Association, unacted (1778); The Female Officer, unacted (1778); The Marriage Contract, unacted (1778). Others, Jack the Giant Queller, op. allegory (Smock Alley 27 Mar 1778); Ruth, an oratoria.

Gustavus Vasa is taken from Vertot’s Revolutions of Sweden, and written by Brooke in Shakespearean style. Sir Robt. Walpole was supposed to be represented in the char. of Trollis; acted as The Patriot in Aungier St., Feb 1741 [PK, ftn. p.275: acted as the ?Betrayer of his Country, and acted in 1754 as Injured Honour]. Acted five times in the 1774-5 season, and revivfed at Smock Alley, 7 May 1772. His allegorical Jack the Giant Queller was brought out by Sheridan on 27 Mar 1749 and vetoed by the Lords Justices the next morning. It represents family of Goods waging war against Wealth, Power, Violence, and Wrong, with songs ridiculing bad governors, Mayors, and Aldermen. Rewritten and revived Smock alley early 1757. It was the only new piece to be prohibited on the Irish stage.

Johnson’s parodied of Essex (‘To rule o’er freemen should themselves be free’ to ‘who drives fat oxen should himself be fat’) is given in Boswell, Life (1924 ed., iii, 379. Brooke’s works ed. his dg. Charlotte Brooke in 1792, omitting plays incl. in earlier ed., 1788, suggesting that some were published there contrary to his wishes, and others than he never had in fact written. Her edition includes a life.

John Cunningham (1729-73); a farce at Capel St. entitled Love in a Mist, written at 18, provided some elements for Garrick’s Lying Valet. See Life of Cunningham, prefixed to Bell’s ed. of Poets of Great Britain, Cunningham’s Poetical Works (1781). Ftn. Genest says it appeared at Crow St., which only opened however on OCt. 22 1758 [PK 275]

Part 5

Chapter 1: Stage (Crow St.)

Barry and Woodward’s Crow St. opens 23 Oct 1758 with Cibber’s com., She Would and She Would Not.

George Stayley’s farce, The Rival Theatres, or A Playhouse to Let, in which Mr Neutral says, ‘Why, the two Theatres have almost rais’d a Civil War amongst us.’

Mossop fled to England, ruined by competition when Dawson opened a theatre on Capel St. in a premises formerly operated by a puppeteer called Stretche, and called Stretche’s Show (O’Keeffe); died with halfpence in his pocket.

An attempt was made by George Colman and the Irish dram. Robert Jephson to get a bill passed [in 1779] ‘for … the exclusive right of one theatre only in Dublin’ [282].

Robert Owenson was among those who rented Crow St. from Thomas Crawford - married to Barry’s widow - in 1782, all former members of Crawford’s company.

The New Theatre, Capel St., leased by Messrs Giordani and Leoni and dedicated ‘solely to the exhibition of English opera during the ensuing season’. It opened 18 Dec 1783, with a new comic opera called Gibraltar by an Oxford grad. Robert Houlton, and ‘a musical entertainment’ called The Haunted Castle; by Walley Oulton, a young Irishman. Closed 1784.

1784 also saw the re-opening of Fishamble St. theatre by Robert Owenson [or MacOwen], with ‘singing of Irish songs, being master of the Irish language as also a perfect musician as to voice … which rendered his benefits very substantial.’ The first performance was to be completely national, with The Carmelite by Jephson, an interlude from Macklin’s The Brave Irishman, and an O’Keeffe farce, The Poor Soldier. Lady Morgan’s diary gives an account of the arbitration of Owenson’s quarrel with Richard Daly, then created Master of Revels, and the compensation. A Parliament Bill authorised only one theatre.

NOTE: Owenson’s outfit is called the National Theatre, and PK builds upon this strongly: ‘the closing of Fishamble St. in 1786 was a serious blow at the setting up of a National drama in Ireland.’

CROW ST. UNDER JONES: Frederick Jones, ed. TCD, with Earl of Westmeath, docorate Fishamble St. ‘with a degree of excellence hitherto unknown in Ireland’ (Hibernian Mag., Mar 1793), and open a theatre for ‘the improvement of scholars and critics’ (Thespian Dict., under F.J.) on 6 Mar 1793 with The Beggar’s Opera. On 12 Aug 1797 Daly surrendered the patent and his theatre to Jones, who promptly close Fishamble St. and managed Crow St. for the next 21 years. He opened Crow St. 29 Jan. 1798 with The Merchant of Venice after extensive alterations. After the 98 Rising and the Emmet Rising sold one eighth shares to Edward Tuite and Thomas Crampton, and removed to London where he co-managed Drury Lane with RB Sheridan’s son till it burnt, when he resumed the Crow St. management till a riot of 1814, caused by the audience’s disappointment at the withdrawal of an advertised afterpiece. Management was conducted by Crampton, then Anthony Roche, a deputy manager, who died before the 1815 season opened. Jones returned to face further riots and lawsuits before his patent expired in 1819. Renewal was refused, and the patent granted to Henry Harris of London. The last performance at Crow St. was Richard the Third, 13 May 1820.

And note, Kavanagh, p. 392: The Theatre Royal, Abbey st., apparently build by Buck Jones, without licence for proper drama, under the management of one Mr. Calvert.

PROVINCIAL THEATRE: There were theatres at Belfast (Mill Gate, Mill St.; Rosemary St.; The Belfast Theatre, Ann St., and later moved to Arthur St.); and Cork, Duncombe’s Marsh [1736]; then a lane off High St.), with records of playhouses existing also in Waterford; Youghal; Wexford; Limerick; Galway; Sligo; Kilkenny; Drogheda; Derry; Mallow; Fermoy; Clonmel; Carlow; Mullingar; Cashel; Ballinasloe.

Chapter 2: Dramatic Trends

Chapter 3: Oliver Goldsmith [not copied]

Chapter 4: R B Sheridan [not copied]

Chapter 5: Hugh Kelly 1738-77

b. Kerry, Lakes of Killarney; f. bought tavern in Dublin where actors were entertained; apprenticed to stay-maker; went to London in 1760; clerking jobs, as copying clerk to Attorney; ed. of Court Magazine and Ladies’ Magazine, 1761; issued Thespis, a sat. poem attacking actors, all except Garrick, who befriended him, while Goldsmith and Bickerstaffe treated him contemptuously.

WORKS: L’Amour a la Mode, or Love a La Mode, com. (unacted trans.) 1760; False Delicacy, com. (DL 23 Jan 1768) 1768; A Word to the Wise, com. (DL 3 Mar 1770) 1770; Clementina, trag. (CG 23 Feb 1771) 1771; The School for Wives, com. (DL 11 Dec 1773) 1774; The Romance of an Hour, com. (CG 2 Dec 1774) 1774; The Man of Reason, com. (CG 9 Feb 1776 not printed.

Garrick put on False Delicacy six days before Goldsmith’s Good natur’d Man to upset him; Kelly made 700 pounds by it. A Word to the Wise was suspected of defending unpopular govt. measures, and caused riots reported in The Gentleman’s Magazine, Mar 1770. Revived 1777 with a prologue by Dr. Johnson. Clementina unsuccessful. To prevent riot, it was pretended that Addington was the author for eight successive nights. The plot of Romance borrowed from Marmontel. Kelly called to Bar 1774, and died of an abcess in his side 1777. A novel, Louisa Mildmay.

Kelly though acknowledged the master of sentimenal drama, also assailed it with pinpricks in his plays. ‘Well the devil take this delicacy; I don;t know anything it does besides making people miserable.’ (2., i). [331]

Chapter 6: Arthur Murphy 1727-1805

b. Clooniquin Co RosCrticismon; lived George’s Quay, Dublin after his f. death in 1729, and left for London in 1735, and Boulogne in 1736. Learned classics at St. Omer, where he studied for six years. Foote reports that he knew the Aeneid by heart. Position with a Cork merchant in 1748; bank in London, after refusing to go to Jamaica; started The Gray’s Inn Journal, 21 Oct 1752, disinherited; played Othello, CG 18 Oct 1754. Refused admission to Middle Bar as actor; published The Test, and later The Auditor, supporting Henry Fox. Entered bar, but retired through deafness, 1788; Crticismissioner of bankrupts; attempts to publish trans. of classics. Member of Johnson’s circle; he lived with Miss Ann Elliot. Attacked by Churchill in the Rosciad: ‘Could it be worth they wondr’ous waste of pains/To publish to the world they lack of brains.’

PLAYS: The Apprentice, farce (1756); The Spouter, or The Triple Revenge, farce, unacted (1756); The Upholsterer or What News?, farce (1758); The Orphan of China, trag. (1759); The Desert Island, dram. poem (DL 24 Jan.) 1760); The Way to Keep Him, com. (1760); All in the Wrong, com. (1761); The Old Maid, farce (1761); The Citizen, farce (1763); No One’s Enemy but His Own, com. (1764); What We Must All Come To, farce (1764); The Choice, farce (DL 1764; in Works, 1786); The School for Guardians, com. (1767); Zenobia, trag. (1768); The Grecian Daughter, trag. (1773); Alzuma, trag. (1773); News from Parnassus, prelude (1776; in Works 1786); Know Your Own Mind (1788); The Rival Sisters, trag. (1793; in Works, 1786); Arminius, unacted trag. (1798); Hamlet with Alterations, burl., unacted.

His Gray’s Inn Journal, no. 96, contains an autograph definition of comedy. Apprentice satirises literary societies; Spouter attacks John Hill, Theo. Cibber, and Samuel Foote (who stole the plot of The Englishman from Paris when Murphy told it him: Biog. Dram.) [Foote is also caricatured as Dashwould in Know your Own Mind: PK 344] Upholsterer shows tradesmen neglecting business for politics, and is based on The Tatler, nos. 155, 160, 178. Orphan based on Voltaire’s L’Orphelin de la Chine, treated in the sentimental manner. Goldsmith thought it had ‘a strength of thought, a propriety of diction and a perfect acquaintance with the stage … if not truly Chinese, at least entirely poetical.’ (Critical Review, May 1759). Other works are based on sundry Frenchpieces. Kavanagh treats individually The Grecian Daughter and Know Your Own Mind.

An elder brother, named James Murphy French, wrote a number of unacted plays: The Brothers, com. from Terence Adelphi, and The Conjurer or the Enchanted Garden, a farce.

Chapter 7: John O’Keeffe 1747-1833

Kavanagh lists 77 works. b. Abbey St., of a Catholic family that lost property after the Boyne; ed. Father Austin, SJ; studied painting under West at RIA; his sight began to fail at 27; total loss of sight ensued in 1781, with a fall in the Liffey on the way to Ringsend for post-play refreshment bringing on inflammation. The Agreeable Surprise, was the last piece written by his own hand [the rest being dictated for, as he said, ‘a man can compose with his pen in the hand of an amanuensis but the pencil he must hold in his own hand’, Recollections, i. 3]. At a benefit on June 12 1800, O’Keeffe, led out blind on stage, recited a poetical address, deeply affecting the audience. He recieved an annuity of 20 pounds for his unused mss from CG, and in Jan. 1826 was awared a pension of 100 pounds from the King, ending his Recollections with a proclamation of gratitude - ‘may he live long and happy!’ Died at 85 Southampton, a Roman Catholic; portrait by Thomas Laurenson in National Portrait Gallery, London.

The Generous Lovers, unacted and unprinted; acted under Mossop and others for 12 years; 1774, m. Mary Heaphy, dg. of Tottenham H., Irish actor; sep. 1780; The She-Gallant, later called The Positive Man [1782]; moved to London, 1777; Tony Lumpkin in Town, or The Dilettante, produced Haymarket 2 July 1778; Dublin, Spring 1779, he finished The Son in Law, produced Haymarket, Aug. 1779; The Dead Alive, based in The Arabian Nights, followed by The Agreeable Surprise, farce (1781). The Banditti, or Love’s Labyrinth (Nov. 1781), com. op., has music by Carolan and other Irish players. Recollections notes that the inclusion of the songs ‘Voorneen Deelish Elleen Oge’, and ‘Erin go Bra’, at that time known only by its Irish words, had no saving effect.’ RB Sheridan, attending the first performance with him, advised cutting the part of Agnes. The Shamrock, or St. Patrick’s Day (Crow St. 15 Apr 1777), a piece for the Order, lately founded, included Carolan airs which he had selected as ‘never before heard by an English public;, and which he incorporated in the less ephemeral The Poor Soldier, com op. (CG 1783; printed 1785). The Castle of Andalusia (CG) and Fountainbleu (1784) were two popular com. operas. Wild Oats (1791)

Hazlitt wrote: ‘In light, careless laughter, and pleasant exaggerations of the humourous, we have had no one one equal him.’ (Lects. on the English Comic Writers, 1869). Kavanagh discusses separately Wild Oats and The Agreeable Suprise, and remarks: ‘O’Keeffe is not remembered today as a writer of comed. His fame is entirely resting on his brilliance as a writer of farce.’ [357]

Chapter 8: Charles Macklin 1690-1757

McLauglin, b. Westmeath; ran away from his mother to England and seduced to marry a widow when under age in 1708, was returned to his mother; badgeman at TCD; ran away to England at 21; returned to his mother and TCD; left again in 1716. Restored The Merchant of Venice to the stage (14 Feb. 1741), having been supplanted by Lord Landsdowne Jew of Venice. WORKS: King Henry VII or the Popish Imposter, hist. trag. (DL 18 Jan. 1745/6), in prose and verse; A will or No Will or A Bone for the Lawyers, farce (DL 23 Apr 1746); The Suspicious Husband Criticised, or the Plague of Envy (DL Mar 24 1747), a criticism of Hoadly’s com.; The Fortune Hunters or the Widow Bewitched (1748; printed 1759), for his own benefit; Covent Garden Theatre or Pasquin Turn’d Drawcansir, Censor of great Britain (CG 8 Apr 1752), about Field, not printed. Love a la Mode (DL 12 Dec. 1759; pirated Dublin ed., 1784; printed ?1893), with the char. Sir Callaghan O’Brallaghan, who wins the bride; The Married Libertine (CG 28 Jan 1761); The True Born Irishman (Crow St. May 1762), produced CG 21 Nov 1767 as The Irish Fine Lady, but failed there; The Whim, or A Christmas Gambol (Crow St. 26 Dec. 1764); The Man of the World (CG 10 May 1781), first produced in Dublin as The True Born Scotsman (Crow St. 10 July 1764), the title being set aside a the instance of the Lord Chamberlain who refused it at first appearance, and for many years; it centres on Sir Pertinard Macsycophant; he raises a son qualified to make a fortunate marriage, but produces a man of honour.

Others treated in chapter are: [Macklin] Bickerstaffe; Catherine Clive; Dr Philip Francis; Henry Jones; Paul Hiffernan; Brenan; Macnamara Morgan; Kane O’Hara; Frances Sheridan; William Chaigneau; Robert Barr; Hall Hartson; Rev. Matthew West; William O’Brien; Denis O’Bryen; Rev. Thomas Lewis O’Beirne; Francis Gentleman; Robert Jephosn; Frederick Pilon; peter Lefanu; Isaac Jackman; Leonard McNally; Wally Chamberlaine Oulton; William Cooke; John Macualey; Joseph Atkinson; William Francis Sullivan; Andrew Franklin; William Macready; Rev. Henry Boyd; William Preston; Miss Burke; J. Simons; Franics Dobbs; Richard Griffith; Amyas Griffith; James Whiteley; George Edmund Howard; Elizabeth Ryves.

Isaac Bickerstaffe ?1735-1812

Main works, comic operas, Love in a Village (CG 8 Dec 1762) 1763; The Maid of the Mill (CG 31 Jan 1765) 1765; Lionel and Clarissa (CG 25 Feb 1768) 1768. Others: Lencothoe, dram. poem (1756); Thomas and Sally, or the Sailor’s Return, mus. ent., with Dr Arne (CG 28 Nov 1760) 1761; Daphne and Amintor, com. op. (DL 8 Oct 1765) 1766, ran 23 nights, and based on Centlivre’s Oracle, with mus. from Piccinni, Vente, Cocchi et al.; The Plain Dealer, com. (DL 7 Dec 1765) 1766, alt. of Wycherley play of that title; Love in the City, com. op. (CG 21 Feb 1761) 1761, condemned on sixth night, mus. by author and Charles Dibdin, later made short as a farce, The Romp; The Absent Man (DL 21 Mar 1768) 1768), farce, char. taken from Menalcas in La Bruyere, trans. by the Spectator (No.77). The Padlock, com. op. (DL 3 OCt 1768) 1768, fifty-three nights, performed first as afterpiece to Hamlet before King Christian VIII in London; The Royal Garland (CG 10 OCT 1768) 1768, interlude, before ‘his Danish Majesty’; The Hypocrite, com. (17 Dec 1768) 1769, alt. Cibber’s Non-Juror, introducing one new char, Maw-Worm, a fanatic; Doctor Last in his Chariot, com. (21 June 1769) 1769, based on Moliere’s La Maladie Imaginaire, with a scene by Samuel Foote; The Captive, com. op. (21 Hay 1769) 1769, based on scenes in Dryden’s Don Sebastian, mus. by Dibdin; Tis Well it’s No Worse, com. (DL 24 Nov. 1770) 1770, adapted from Calderon’s El Escondido y la Tapada, eleven nights, and later shortened as farce by John Kemble as The Panel (1788); The Recruiting Sargeant, interlude with Dibdin (Ranelagh Hs., DL 1770) 1700; He Would if He Could or An Old Fool Worse than Any, burl., mus. Dibdin (DL 12 Apr 1771) 1771, from Federico’s La Serva Padrona; The Sultan or A Peep into the Seraglio, op. farce (DL 12 Dec 1775) 1787, trans. of Favart’s Solomon II or Les Trois Sultanes; The Spoilt Child (DL 23 Mar 1790), 1799, last work, often ascribed to other authors.

Love in a Village comparable for success with Beggar’s Opera; it was revived successfully in London in 1924; a compilation borrowed from Charles Johnson’s Village Opera, Wycherley’s Gentleman Dancing Master, and Marivaux’s Jeu de l’Amour and de l’Hazard; it contains, ‘There was a jolly miller once/Lived on the River Dee … I care for nobody not I/If no one cares for me.’ Lionel and Clarissa, original, excepting the line from Dryden’s Alexandre’s Feast: ‘Not but the brave deserve the fair’ (end Act 1). Altered and revived as The School of the Fathers (DL Feb. 1770). The Maid on the Mill, based on Richardson’s Pamela, divested of coarse scenes, ran 35 nights. Kavanagh compares him with present-day script writers. The biographical information is mostly drawn from Biog. Dram., but makes no mention of his flight, its cause, or his subsequent distress.

Catherine Clive: 1711-1785

Actress and author of unimportant works: The Rehearsal or Boys in Petticoats, burl. (DL 15 Mar 1750) 1753; Every Woman in her Humour, farce (DL 20 Mar 1760) Larpent MS; The Island of Slaves, farce (DL 26 Mar 1761) Larpent MS; The Sketch of a Fine Lady’s Return from a Rout, farce (DL 21 Mar 1763), Larpent MS; The Faithful Irishwoman, farce (DL 18 Mar 1765) Larpent MS.

Dr. Philip Francis: ?1708-1773

Eugenia, trag. (DL 17 Feb 1752) 1752; Constantine, trag. (CG 23 Feb 1754) 1754, both coolly received; flipped a coin with Henry Jones at the time when the latter;’s Essex was acted (Murphy, in Gray’s Inn Journal; Genest).

Henry Jones: 1721-70

His patron Chesterfield persuaded CG to produce The Earl of Essex (21 Feb 1753). Life in European Magazine, vol 25 (1798). His Cave of Idra enlared into The Heroine of the Cave by Hiffernan.

Dr. Paul Hiffernan: 1719-1777

The Self-Enamoured or the Ladies Doctor, com. (1750); The Lady’s Choice, farce (CG 20 Apr 1759) Larpent MS; The Wishes of a Free People, dram. poem (1761); The New Hippocrates or A Lesson for Quacks, dram. sat. (DL 1 Apr 1761) Larpent MS; The Earl of Warwick or the King and Subject, trag. (1764; National Prejudice, com. (DL 6 Apr 1768); The Philosophic Whim or Astronomy, farce; In the Old Thespian Manner Being a New and Humorous Display of the Universe with Proper Elucidations (1774); The Heroine of the Cave (DL 19 Mar 1774) 1775, and Larpent MS. Life also in European Magazine, vol 25 (1798). Kavanagh gives no account of his Humorous Display.

Brenan, fl.1756

The Painter’s Breakfast (1756), a satire on would-be connoisseurs fixated on the antique; The Lawsuit, admired by Burke. Only Biog. Dram. and DNB.

Macnamara Morgan, d. 1762

Dublin barrister; Philoclea, trag. (CG 22 Jan 1754) 1754, produced through influence of Spranger Barry, based on Sydney’s Arcadia, ran nine nights; The Sheep-Shearing or Florizel and Perdita (CG 25 Mar 1754) 1767. Full of absurdities.

Kane O’Hara, ?1714-82

Midas, An English Burletta (Crow St., 22 Jan 1762) 1762; The Gold Pippin, Eng. burl. (CG 6 Feb 1773) 1773; The Two Misers, mus. farce (CG 21 Jan 1775) 1775, from F. de Falbaire’s Les Deux Avares (Paris 1770), mus. by Dibdin; April Day (Hay 22 Aug 1777) 1777, mus. by Arnold; Tom Thumb (CG 3 Oct 1780) 1806, based on Fielding’s.

Mrs. Francis Sheridan 1724-67

Minor drama: The Discovery (DL 3 Feb 1763) 1763; The Dupe (DL 10Dec 1763) 1764; the former a moral and sentimental play, made pop. by the acting of Garrick as Sir Anthony Branville; altered and produced by Aldous Huxley at RADA London, 4 May 1924. The Dupe was condemned for indelicacy by a fastidious (ladies’) audience.

William Chaigneau 1709-81

Said to be author of Harlequin Soldier, adapted from French, 22 Mar 1765, Edinburgh; no record of this play in sources other than DNB.

Robert Carr

Eugenia, trag. (1766), with Samuel Hayes; included by O’Donoghue in Poets of Ireland.

Hall Hartson, 1739-1773

TCD Student; The Countess of Salisbury (Crow St., 2 May 1765) 1767; taken from Thomas Leland’s Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, the story of the attempted seduction of his wife by Gray and Raymond; Leland is said to have assisted Hartson; the play displays the Unities.

Rev. Matthew West

Vicar of Union of Clare; author of two privately printed and unacted tragedies, Ethelinda (1769) and Pizarro (1799), the latter an adapt. of Kotzebue; Female Heroism (1803), based on French Revolution, acted at Crow St. the preface speaks of finishing it after Eyre’s Normandy appeared at Crow St. Good char. in Robespierre. Biog. Dram.

William O’Brien ?1736-1815

Appeared as Captain Brazen in Farquhar’s Recruiting Officer, 3 Oct 1758; m. Susan Sara Strangways, eldest dg. of Stephen Fox, Earl of Ilchester. Cross Purposes, farce (CG 5 Dec 1772) 1772, a success, based on La Font’s Le[s] Trois Freres Rivaux; The Duel (DL 8 Dec 1772); bsed on Sedaine’s Le Philosophe sans le Savoir.

Denis O’Bryen 1755-1832

One play, A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed, com. (Hay 5July 1783), unprinted; 8 nights, and withdrawn by Colman following quarrel.

Rev. Thomas Lewis O’Beirne 1748?-1823

Bishop of Meath, The Generous Imposter, com. (DL 22 Nov 1780) 1781, from Destouches’s Le Dissipateur. [DNB]

Francis Gentleman 1728-1784

15 pieces, mostly adaptations; Sejanus (1752), from Jonson; Osman (Bath c.1753), not printed; Zaphira (Bath 1754), not printed; The Sultan or Love and Fame (Bath, York and Scarborough c. 1754; Hay, 1769) 1770, orig. from Turkish history; Richard II (Bath 1754), from Shakespeare, not printed; The Mentalist, satire (Manchester c.1759), not printed; The Fairy Court, interlude (Chester c.1770), played by children, 15 nights; The Tobacconist, com. (Edinburgh, c.1750; Hay, 22 July 1771) 1771, from Jonson’s Alchemist; The Modish Wife (Chester 1761; Hay, 18 Sept. 1773) 1774 ed. with account of author; Oroonoko, orf the Royal Slave (Edinburgh c.1760: DL 11 Mar 1769, expurgated Southerne; The Stratford Jubilee, com. (Stratford on Avon, c. 1769) 1769; The Coxcombs (Hy 16 Sept 1771), alteration of Jonson’s Epicoene, not printed; Cupid’s Revenge, past. (Hay, 27 July 1772) 1772, mus. by Hook; The Pantheonites, dram, ent. (Hay 3 Sept 1773) 1773; Orpheus and Eurydice, op. (Smock Alley, 1783), trans. from Italian. Author of Dramatic Censor, and a ‘worst’ ed. of Shakespeare, for Bell, 1774, 1775.

Robert Jephson 1736-1803

Author fo pseudo-romantic tragedy imitative of Shakespeare, esp. in blank verse; Braganza (DL 17 Feb 1775 and 15 nights) 1775, with prologue by Arthur Murphy, theme taken from Otway’s Venice Preserv’d; the revolt of Don Juan against usurping Velasquez and Pizarro in Portugal; The Law of Lombardy (DL 8 Feb 1779, 9 nights) 1779, from Much Ado About Nothing; The Count of Narbonne (CG 17 Nov 1781) 1781, based on Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto; The Hotel or The Servant with Two Masters, farce (Smock Alley, May 1783) 1784, similar to Thomas Vaughan’s The Hotel or the Double Valet (DL Nov 1776), and subsequently altered and produced as Two Strings to Your Bow (CG 16 Feb 1791) 1791, much applauded; The Campaign or Love in the East Indies, com. op. (Smock Alley, Jan 1784; CG 12 May 1785), later abridged and improved as Love and War (CG 15 Mar 1787); Julia or the Italian Lover, trag. (DL 14 Apr 1787) 1787, a murder story; The Conspiracy (DL 15 Nov 1796, and 3 nights) 1796, from Metatasio’s La Clemenza di Tito. Walpole understandably rated him highly. [Kavanagh superfluous refers us to DNB for life both at ftn. 66 and 76.]

Frederick Pilon 1750-1788

13 pieces, mostly farces; The Invasion or A Trip to Brighthemlstone (CG 4 Nov 1778) 1788; The Liverpool Prize (CG 22 Feb 1779) 1779, repeated 17 times; Illumination or The Glazier’s Conspiracy, prelude (CG 12 April 1779) 1799, 8 nights, concerning acquittal of Admiral Keppel; Thedevice or The Deaf Doctor (CG 27 Sept 1779) Larpent MS, revised as The Deaf Lover (CG 2 Fe 1780); The Siege of Gibraltar, op. farce (CG 25 Apr 1780 and 5 nights) 1780, mus. William Shield; The Humours of an Election (CG 19 Oct 1780, and 14 nights), formerly acted as The Close of the Poll, or The Humours of an Election; Thelyphthora or More Wives than One, farce (CG 8 Mar 1781, 2 nights), ridiculing Dr Martin Madan’s Thelphthora, an apology for polygamy; The Fair American, com. op. (DL 18 May 1782, and 7 nights) 1785, plag. from Hull’s alteration of Sir Sam. Tuke’s Adventures of Five Hours, with mus. by T. Carter; Aerostation or the Templar’s Stratagem (CG 29 Oct 1784) 1784, a satire on balloons; Barataria or Sancho Turn’d Governor (CG 29 Mar 1785) 1793, became a stock piece, based on Durfey’s plays on Don Quixote; All’s Well that Ends Well (Hay 26 July 1785), unprinted alteration of Shakespeare; He Would be a Soldier, com. (CG 18 Nov 1786; 23 nights in the season) 1786; unfinished com. The Ward in Chancery, possibly finished as The Toy or Hampton Court Frolics, by John O’Keeffe, though this is denied by the latter in Recollections.

Peter LeFanu (fl.1778)

Smock Alley Secrets or the Manager Worried (Smock Alley 1 Nov 1780), unprinted, but MS in Houdini Collection, NY; other private pieces reported. Biography in Biog. Dram.

Isacc Jackman fl.1777

Farces and burlesques; The Milesian, op. farce (DL 20 Mar 1777) 1777, mus. T. Carter, poorly received; All the World’s a Stage, farce (DL 7 April 1777) 1777, then revived, char. stage-struck Diggery; The Divorce, farce (DL 10 Nov. 1781) 1781; The Man of Parts or A trip to London, farce (Smock Alley, Dec. 1785) 1795; Hero and Leander, burl. (Royalty 1787) 1787; Allmirine (Royalty 23 June 1788), mock trag., acted with cardboard figures and one actor, not printed. [DNB]

Leonard MacNally 1752-1820

The Ruling Passion, com. op. (Capel St., 24 Feb 1778) 1779; the Apotheosis of Punch, sat. masque (Patagonian 1779) 1779, attempts to ridicule Sheridan’s ‘Monody on the death of Garrick’; A New Occasional Prelude (CG 16 Sept 1782), not printed; Retaliation, farce (CG 7 May 1782) 1782, well received; Tristram Shandy (CG 26 April 1783), cento from Sterne, condemned on first night in Dublin; Coalition, op. farce (CG 19 Apr 1783), not printed; Robin Hood or Sherwood Forest, com. op. (CG 17 Apr 1784), mus. W. hield; very popular, though wooden, and later reduced to two acts; Fashionable Levities, 5 act com. (CG 2 Apr 1785) 1785, well received, taken in part from Lewis Machin, The Dumb Knight, in Dodsley’s Old Plays; April Fool or the Follies of a Night (CG 1 Apr 1786), Larpent MS, with a familiar story; Richard Coeur de Lion, com. op. (CG 16 Oct 1786), adapted from MJ Sedaine’s French play of the same title (Paris 21 Oct 1784), and thrown down by Burgoyne’s adaptation of the same 8 days later at Drury Lane; Critic Upon Critic, sat. farce [1780], in which Atic is Sheridan, printes 1788 and reprinted in 1792, as performed at CG, though not traceable in any theatre records; The Cottage Festival or A Day in Wales (Crow St. 29 Nov 1796), mus. by Giordani.

Walley Oulton ?1770-1820

19 dramatic pieces, i.e., 18 farces and one comedy; The Haunted House, interlude (Capel St. 18 Dec 1783, 36 nights) 1784, mus. by T. Giordani; The Happy Disguise disguise or Love in a Meadow, com. op. (Capel St. 7 Jan 1784) 1784; The New Wonder - A Woman Holds her Tongue, farce(Capel St. 14 Jan 1784), not printed; The Mad House (Capel St. 5 May 1784) 1785, entertainment with mus. by T. Giordani; Poor Maria, interlude (Crow St. 1785), not printed; A New Way to Keep A Wife at Home, farce (Smock Alley, 20 Jan 1785), altered from Fielding;s The Letter Writers; The Recruiting Manager, prelude (Fishamble, 1785), not printed; Curiosity or A Peep Through the Keyhole, com. (Smock Alley 27 Mar 1786), not printed; Hobson’s Choice or Thespis Distress, burl. (Royalty, 3 July 1787), not printed; It Should Be; d Dramatic entertainment (Hay 2 JUne 1789), presented to Colman as being written by a lady, a success; Perseverance or The Third Time the Best, interlude (Crow St., 12 March 1789), mus. Giordani, not printed; What’s the Matter?, burl. printed in 1789; All in Good Humour, interlude (Hay 7 July 1797), not printed; The Irish Tar or Which is the Girl?, interlude (Hay 24 August 1797), not printed; Botheration or a Ten Years’ Blunder, farce (CG 8 May 1798) 1798; Pyramus and Thisbe (Birmingham 1798) 1798, and The Two Apprentices or Industry and Idleness Rewarded (Birmingham 1798) are pantomines, not printed; Sixty Third Letter, farce (Hay 28 July 1802) 1803; The Middle Dish or The Irishman in Turkey, farce (DL 16 Apr 1804), in which an Irish footman and his wife are waited on by their former master and mistress at the behest of a Grand Signior who mistakes[?] their identity, mixed reception.

William Cooke 1740-1824

Author of Macklin’s memoirs, and one piece, The Capricious Lady (CG 17 Jan 1783), alteration of Beaumont and Fletcher’s The Scornful Lady, indelicacies expunged; also The Elements of Dramatic Criticism.

John Macauley LLD,MRUA ?1755-18??

The Genius of Ireland, published 1785, ?unacted.

Joseph Atkinson 1743-1818

The Mutual Deceptio, com. (Smock Alley, 2 Mar 1785) 1785, from Marivaux, Le Jeu de l’Amour et du Hasard; altered by Colman and produced at Haymarket as Tit for Tat (1786); A Match for a Widow or The Frolics of Fancy, com. op. (Smock Alley 17 Apr 1786) 1788, mus. Charles Dibdin, plot from Patrat’s L’Heureux Erreur; Love in A Blaze, com. op. (Crow St., 29 May 1799) 1800, mus. Sir John Stevenson, plot same as that of Gallic Gratitude by Dr. James Solas Dodd [PI] which was later acted as The Funeral Pile[?], equally borrowed from La Font’s Le Naufrage.

William Francis Sullivan ?1756-?1830

TCD grad.; The Rights of Man, farce (Buxton 1791; Hay 9 Aug 1792); in The Thespian Magazine, 1792, vol 1; The Test of Union and Loyalty or The Long-threatened French Invasion, 8vo, 1797 written and spoken by WF Sullivan, AB; Flights of Fancy, Leeds 1792.

Andrew Franklin fl.1785

The Hypocondriac, interlude (Smock Alley Jan 1785), mus. Giordani, not printed; The Mermaid, farce (CG 26 Mar 1792) 1792; The Wandering Jew or Love’s Masquerade, broad farce (DL 15 May 1797) 1797; A Trip to the Nore, 1 act, mus. ent. (DL 9 Nov 1797) 1797; The Outlaws, mus. dram., mus. by Florio (DL 9 NO 1798) 1798; Gander Hall, farce (Hay, 5 Aug 1799), Larpent MS; Embarkation, mus. ent. (DL 3 Oct 1799), mus. by Reeve 1799, songs printed in 1799; The Egyptian Festival, com. op. (DL 24 Mar 1800) 1800; The Counterfeit (DL Mar 1804) 1804, a success [Biog. Dram. and DNB]

Lady Sophia Raymond Burrell ?1750-1802

Comala, dram. poem, from Ossian, performed in Hanover Sq. Rooms, 8vo 1792; Maximiam, trag. from Corneille, unacted, 8vo, 1800; Theodora or The Spanish Daughter, unacted trag., 8vo, 1800.

William Macready

The Irishman In London or The Happy African, farce (CG 21 Apr 1792) 1793, based on James Whitley’s The Intriguing Footman; The Bank Note or Lessons For Ladies (CG 1 May 1795) 1795, comedy based on W. Taverner’s The Artful Husband; and possibly The Village Lawyer (Hay 28 Aug. 1787) 1795, farce based on L’Avocat Patelin, old French drama, though his name appeared on the printed ed., there was a report that it was the work of a Dublin dissenting minister.

Rev. Henry Boyd, A.M. 1756-1832

The Helots, trag.;The Temple of Vesta, dram. poem; The Royal Message, dram. pastoral; The Rivals, sacred dram., based on Uriah and David, all appearing in his volume of poetry, 1793; trans. Dante’s Inferno.

William Preston 1753-1807

Offa and Ethelbert or The Saxon Princes, based on Hume’s History of England; Messene Freed (Crow St., 12 Jan 1792), based on Abbé Bathelemy’s Travels of Anarcharsis and Rosamunda or The Daughter Revenge, taken from story of Alboinus, in An Ancient Universal History; a song for a unprinted trag., The Adopted Son; also The Democratic Rage or Louis the Unfortunate (Crow St. June 1793 1793, applauded ;The Siege of Ismail, unacted trag.(1794).

Miss Burke

The Ward of the Castle, com. op. (CG 2 Oct 1793) Larpent MS, unprinted. [Biog. Dram.]

J.Simons

National Prejudice, short com. (CG 10 May 1791), Larpent MS; The Village Coquette, farce (16 Apr 1792), Larpent MS, taken from French. Simons was a mimic. [Genest]

Francis Dobbs fl.1744

The Patriot King or Irish Chief (Smock Alley 26 Apr. 1773) 1774, rejected by DL and CG; love of Ceallacan for Sitra. ‘There is nothing national baout the play … ‘ (Kavanagh).

Richard Griffith ?1704-1788

Variety (DL 25 Feb 1782 ) 1782, acted 9 times, and considered ‘uniformly dull’ by Genest.

Amyas Griffith 1745-1801

The ‘critical sovereign of Belfast, The Swadler, 1771, printed wth a portrait of the author, but unacted.

James Whiteley 1791

The Intriguing Footman or The Humours of Harry Humbug, farce (Sheffield 1791), unprinted, but source of Macready’s Irishman in London [Biog. Dram.]

George Edmund Howard, 1715-1786

Ameyda or the Rival Kings (1769), unacted, based on Hawkworth’s Almoran and Hamlet; The Siege of Tamor (Smock Alley, Apr 1774) 1773, based on 9th c. Danish wars in Ireland, with ‘sentimental regard’ for Irish chiefs (Kavanagh); poss. with help from Henry Brook; The Female Gamester, unacted,

Elizabeth Ryves; Poems on Several Occasions, include The Prude, com. op., and The Triumph of Hymen, dram. poem; also The Debt of Honour, com., never acted.

Part V

Chapter 1: The Stage 1820-1904

Theatre Royal, Hawkins St., under Henry Harris (1820); opened 19 July 1820, with The Belle’s Stratagem, and the farce The Spoiled Child as afterpiece.

Italian Opera Co. of Ireland, 14 Oct. 1829, Paer’s Agnese; Rossini;s Il turco in Italian, Tancredi, Italiani in Algieri, Otello, and La Gazza Ladra. calcraft became manager on 30 Nov., 1830; Destroyed Mon. 8 Feb. 1880; Leinster Hall built, and repalced by 1897 by the New Royal theatrre, directors Frederick Mouillot, David Telford, and four sons of theatrical printer David Allen, opened 13 Dec. 1897 with The Geisha, com. op.; eventually descended to music hall.

A theatre functioned at Abbey Street under the title of Theatre Royal 1837-29, when it burned.

Adelphi, later Queens. Open in 1823 as New Olympic Circus, managed by John Scott, who built The Adelphi Theatre in 1829, opening on 26 Dec with The Old Oak Chest, probably by his sister; he held a Lord Mayor’s licence rather than a Viceroy’s.

Hayden Corri and Mr. Norman opened in that premises, leased, with Isaac Bickerstaffe’s ballad opera, Love in a Village, 6 Sept. 1830; closed by Calcraft till 1835, when Mr Last produced a series of French plays there; generally closed until 1844 when John Charles Josoph pulled it down and raised the Queen’s, opening 5 Oct 1844 with The Devil’s In It, The Lottery Ticket, and The Millar’s Maid; Joseph failed, and let to John Harris, Sept. 1747 to 14 June 1851; then let to Charles Dillon, August 1852.

Henry Irving played Cassion in Othello, 6 Mar 1860; the rival actor Vincent organised a boycott, and írving was booed, returning to London; Henry Webb manager 1854-1874; Arthur Lloyd began management in 1874, and introduced music hall, formerly the monopoly of Fishamble St.

Whitbread management, 1887-Mar 1907, when the Queen’s closed. last performance, 18 mar 1907, consisted of two new pieces, The Rapparee (anon.), and Sold, by J. H. Cousins.

Fishamble St., as The San Pareil Theatre, under panto. clown, Bradbury, 1827; Frederick Freebyrne changed it to the Prince of Wales theatre; his freehold was bought in 1867 by Keenans and Sons, the merchants.

Gaiety Theatre, founded John and Michael Gunn, opeing 27 Nov 1871 with She Stoops to Conquer; the Gunns introduced Wagner. Controlled the Royal in 1874; John Gunn died in Apr 1877; management passed to a nephew, John Gunn, in 1896; theatre sold 11 Sept. 1908; Gaiety Th. Co. founded 9 Aug 1909

Chapter 2: Trends

After a summary of factors on the decline of Dublin theatre, Kavanagh conludes: iot is interesting to remember that the most popular dramatic author in Ireland during the last decade of the century was Hubert O’Grady, who wrote sentimental and stage-Irish melodramas, which were produced at the Queen’s Theatre. His most popular peice was The Famine … appealed to that section of the audience for whom the wolfhound and round tower were the highest and purest symbols of Ireland. [401]

Chapter 3: Dion Boucicault

b. 20 Dec., Lr. Gardiner St.; Boursiqnot [sic]; Dr Lardner took a parental interest in him; first play, London Assurance (CG 4 Mar 1841), as Lee Morton; The Irish Heiress (Feb 1842) … Arrah-na-Pogue, or The Wicklow Wedding (TR Dublin 5 Nov. 1864) … Finn MacCoul (1887).

Chapter 4: Minor Dramatists 1800-1900

Andrew Cherry: Harlequin on the Stocks, pant. (Hull Th., 1793) 1793; The Outcasts or Poor Bess and Little Dick, op. (Crow St., 1 Mar. 1796), not printed; The Lyric Novelist or Life Epitomised, unacted but printed 1804;iThe Soldier’s Daughter, com. (DL 7 Feb 1804, 35 nights); All for Fame or A Peep at the Times, com. sketch (DL 15 May 1805), unprinted; The Travellers or Music’s Fascination, op. dram. with mus. by Corri (DL 7 Feb 1806); Thalia’s Tears, a sketch (DL 7 Feb 1806), not printed; Spanish dollars or the Priest of the Parish, music by Davy (CG 9 Apr 1805) 1806, set in West of Ireland; Peter the Great or the Wooden Walls, op. drama, mus. Jouve (CG 8 May 1807) 1807; A Day in London, com. (DL 9 Apr 1807) not printed. Besides his authorship of ‘The Dear Little Shamrock’, Cherry’s plays are claptrap with nothing to reCrticismend them (Kavanagh).

Lady Sydney Morgan 1783-1859

The First Attempt, or Whim of the Moment, op. (Theatre Royal, Dublin, 4 Mar 1807 and several nights, 400 pounds profit to her); published 1807.

Miss Sara Bartley [née Smith] 1783-1850

Actress; The Lady of the Lake, dram.; Border Feuds or The Lady of Buccleigh, both published in Dublin, with no date.

Richard Cenevix 1774-1830

Chemist, minerologist; Dramatic Poems - Leonara, trag., and Etha and Aidallo, dram. poem (London 1802); two other plays, published 1812, Mantuan Revels, 5 act com.; Henry the Seventh, 5 act hist. trag., reviewed in Edinburgh Review, 1812. Imitation Shakespeare.

John Till Allingham fl. 1799-1810

[DNB] Fortune’s Frolic, farce (CG Ha 17 June, 1800) 1800; The Marriage Promise, com. (DL 16 April 1803) 1803; Mrs Wiggins, farce (Hay 27 May 1803) 1803; Hearts of Oak, com. (DL 19 Nov 1803) 1804, damned in Genest; The Weathercock, farce (DL 18 Nov 1805) 1806; Romantic Lovers or Lost and Found, com. (CG 11 Jan 1806), not printed; Who Wins? or The Widow’s Choice (CG 25 Feb 1808), not printed; Independence or the Trustee, com. (Hay 9 Mar 1809), not printed; Transformation or Love and Law, op. farce (Lyceum 30 Nov. 1810), not printed.

JD Herbert

Tryals All (Crow St., 1802), not printed, and according to JW Croker by a gentleman named L--less who did not wish to be known.

John Daly Burk c.1770-1808

Bunker Hill or The Death of General Warren (Hay., Boston, 17 Jan. 1797); Female Patriotism or the Death of Joan d’Arc (Park Theatre, 1798); The Death of General Montgomery in Storming the City of Quebec (1797); Bethlen Gabor, Lord of Transylvania or The Man-hating Palatine (Petersburg, V., c.1807); Which Do you Like Best, the Poor Man or the Lord. Also Fortunes of Nigel, cited in O’Donoghue.

HB Code fl.1812

three musical dramas, mus. by Sir John Stevenson, The Spanish Patriot of A Thousand years Ago (Lyceum 22 Sept. 1812); The Patriot, or Hermit of Saxellan (Peter St. Theatre, Dublin, c.1810) 1811, written ‘to inculcate a loyal and patriotic union of all descriptions of Irishmen against an invading enemy’ (pref.); The Russian Sacrifice or The Burning of Moscow (Crow St. Dublin 1813) 1813, includes a stage-Irishman, Barney Mulhuddart.

John Joshua Proby

[DNB; Biog. Dram., i]; four trags. published in 1810, not acted: Caius Gracchus; Fall of Carthage, modeled on Greek with chorus; Monimia; and Polyxena, based on Euripides Hecuba.

Thomas Moore 1799-1852

The Gypsy Prince, com. op. (Hay, 24 July 1801); Montbar or The Buccaneers (1804, failed); and M.P. or The Blue Stocking, com op. (Lyceum 9 Sept 1811, 19 nights).

Samuel Lover 1799-1868

The Beau Ideal, burletta (Olymp., 9 Nov 1835); Rory O’More, 3 acts (Adelphi 29 Sept. 1837), Dicks Plays 365; The White Horse of the Peppers, 2 act com. dram. (Hay 26 May 1838), Dicks 441; The Happy Man, extrav. (Hay 20 May 1839), Dicks 328; The Hall Porter, farce (English Opera House, 26 July 1839), Dicks 520; The Greek Boy, mus. dram. (CG 29 Sept. 1840), Dicks 609; Il Paddy Whack in Italia (Eng. Op. House, 22 April 1841), Duncombe, operetta and burl. of Italian operatic methods; McCarthy More or Possession Nine Points of the Law, 2 act com. drama (Lyceum I Apr 1861); Barney the Baron, one act farce; and The Olympic Premier.

James Kenney 1780-1849

Prolific dramatist [DNB]; Raising the Wind (CG 5 Nov. 1803) 1803; Matrimony, op. farce (DL 20 Nov. 1805) 1805, mus. by King; False Alarms or My Cousins, com. op. (DL 12 Jan 1807) 1807, mus. Braham and King; Ella Rosenberg (DL 19 Nov. 1807) 1807; The Blind Boy (CG 1 Dec. 1807) 1807; The World, com. (DL 31 Mar 1808) 1808; Oh This Love or The Masqueraders, com op. (Lyceum 12 June 1810), mus. King; Turn Him Out!, op. farce (Lyceum 7 Mar 1812) 1812; Love, Law and Physic, farce (CG 20 Nov. 1812), 1821; Debt and Creditor, com. (CG 20 Apr 1814)1814; The Fortune of War, Larpent MS (CG 17 May 1815); The Portfolio or the Family of Anglade (DL 3 1 Feb 1816) 1816; The Touchstone or the World as it Goes, com. (DL 3 May 1817) 1817; A House Out At the Windows, op. farce (DL 10 May 1817) 1817; A Word to the Ladies (CG 17 Dec. 1818), Larpent, mus. by Corri; Match-breaking or The Prince’s Present, op. farce (Hay 3 July 1822); John Buzzby or A Day’s Pleasure (Hay 3 July 1822) 1822; Sweethearts and Wives, com. op. (Hay 7 July 1823) 1823, mus. by Whitaker, Nasthan, T. Cooke, and Perry, ran 51 nights. Also The Alcaid or The Secrets of Office, com. op. (Hay 10 Aug, 1824); The Wedding Present (DL 28 Oct 1825) Lacy Collection, mus. by Horn; Benyowsky or The Exiles of Kamschatka (DL 16 Mar 1826) 1826, based on Kotzebue, mus. Stevenson, Cooke, Horn, Livius, and Kelly; Thirteen to the Dozen, op. farce (Hay, 28 July 1826) Lacy Collection, from French farce; The Green Room, com. (CG 18 Oct. 1826) Lacy Collection; Spring and Autumn or the Bride of Fifty, com. (Hay 6 Sept 1827), Dicks 708; The Illustrious Stranger, or Married and Buried (DL 1 Oct. 1827), 1827, with J Millingen, mus. by Nathan; Forget and Forgive or Rancontres in Paris, farce (DL 21 Nov. 1827, Lacy Collection; Frolics in France (DL 15 Mar 1828, revision; Peter the Great (CG 21 Feb 1829), doubtful authorship; Masaniello, op. (CG 4 May 1829), adapt. from Scribe’s La Muette de Portici (Paris 1828); The Pledge, or Castilian Honour, trag. (DL 8 Apr 1831); The Irish Ambassador, farce (CG 17 Nov. 1831), Dicks 920; The Self-Tormentor or Whims and Fancies, farce (DL 16 Feb 1832), Lacy Collection; Fighting by Proxy, burletta (Olymp. 9 Dec. 1833) 1835, burletta, adapted from More Frightened than Hurt by D. Jerrold; Dancing for Life, burletta (Olymp. 16 Jan 1834); A Good-Looking Fellow, farce (CG 17 April 1834) 1834, with A Bunn; The King’s Seal, com. (DL 10 Jan. 1835) 1835, with Gore; Not a Word!, burletta (Olymp., 26 Jan 1835) Lacy Collection; The Spirit of the Bell, com. op. (Eng. Op. Hse., 8 June 1835) Lacy Collection, mus. by GH Rodwell; Hush or Secrets at Court, com. (DL 27 Dec 1836) Lacy Collection; Macintosh and Co., farce (CG 21 Feb 1838); Barbara or The Bride of a Day, op. (CG, 3 Nov. 1838) Lacy Collection; The Sicilian Vespers, trag. (Surrey, 21 Sept. 1840) 1840, adapted from C. Delavigne’s Le Vepres Siciliennes; Love’s Extempore, farce (Hay 23 Nov. 1841), Dicks 733; Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp, burlesque (Lyc. 1844), with AR Smith; Infatuation, com. (Princess, 1 May, 1845), Lacy Collection; Up the Flue or What’s in the Wind, farce (Adelphi 121 May, 1846), with Boucicault; Herani or the Pledge of Honour, trans. Victor Hugo. Slighted by Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: ‘.. while Kenney’s World -ah, where is Kenney’s wit? -/tires the sad gallery, lulls the listless pit.’

Rev. Charles Robert Maturin 1782-1824

Bertram or The Castle of St. Aldobrando (DL 9 May 1816, 22 nights) 1816; Manuel (DL 8 Mar 1817) 1817, condemned by Coleridge; Fredolfo (CG 12 May 1819) 1819; also Osmyn the Renegade or the Siege of Salerno (Th. Royal, Dublin, 30 Mar 1830), a failure and never printed. Sentimentality and horror.

Richard Lalor Sheil 1791-1851

Adelaide, or The Emigrants, trag. (Crow St., 19 Feb 1814) 1814; The Apostate,trag. (CG 3 may 1817) 1817; Bellamira or the Fall of Tunis, trag. (CG 22 Apr 1818) 1818; Evadne or the Statue, trag. (CG 10 Feb 1819) 1819; Montoni or The Phantom (CG 3 May 1820); The Hugenots (CG 11 Dec 1822), and an adapted of Massinger’s Fatal Dowry (DL 1824). Hazlitt thought of Adelaide that ‘the language of this tragedy is made up nonsense and indecency,’ but it ran 30 nights. Sentimentality and horror.

John Banim 1798-1842

Turgesius, unacted and unprinted [see DUM, Nov. 1855, no.558]; Damon and Pythias (CG 28 May 1821) 1821, with help from Sheil, based on Polyaenus Bk 5, chp. 25, a success; The Prodigal, never acted; The Death Fetch (Eng. Op. Hs., c.1825); The Last Guerilla (Eng. Op. Hs., c.1826); The Sargeant’s Wife (Eng Op. Hs., 24 July 1827) ?1855. The last three, adapted from Banim novels. The Sister of Charity (Eng. Op. Hse. 1830), approved; The Conscript’s Sister (Eng. Op. Hse. 1832); The Irish Widow, farce (Th. Royal, Dublin, 21 July 1825), author’s benefitl The Ghost Hunters (Surrey 26 Mar 1833); The Duchess of Ormond (DL 20 Oct. 1836), and Sylla (Th. Royal, Dublin, 18 May 1837).

Sir Aubrey de Vere 1788-1846

Julian the Apostate, dram. poem (1822); The Duke of Mercia (1823); Mary Tudor (1847), shows Schiller’s influence.

Michael O’Sullivan 1794-1845

[PI] The Corsair or The Pirate’s Island (Crow St. 1814), mus. J. Blewitt, and Lalla Rookh (Crow St. 1818), mus. C. Horn, ran 100 nights; Poet laureate of Freemason’s in Ireland in 1820.

James Haynes 1788-1851

[PI] Conscience or The Bridal Night (DL 21 Feb. 1821; Th. Royal, Dublin 1823) 1821; Durazzo (CG Nov. 1838) 1823; Mary Stuart (DL 22 Jan 1840) 1840, all trags.

Robert Bell 1800-1867

The Watchword or Quito-Gate (DL 19 Oct 1816) 1816, authorship doubtful; Macbeth Modernized: a most illegitimate drama, burl. (1938; Marriage, com. (Hay 24 Jan. 1843) 1843; Temper, com. (Hay 17 May 1847) 1847.

Bertridge Clarke ?1780-1824

b. Co. RosCrticismon, ed. TCD; Ramiro, trag. (Th. Royal, Dublin, 1822, four times); also adapted Schiller’s Kabale unde Liebe as Ravenna or Italian Love (CG 3 De. 1824) 1824. During the Dublin performance of Ramiro, students threw a straw man from the gallery, dressed in academic robes. Clarke died in poverty. [See PI; see also The Warder, 13 Jan. 1866.]

C Thompson f.1814

b. Belfast; Rokeby or the Buccaneer’s Revenge, 3 act drama in verse based on Scott, and printed in Dublin in 1824. [See PI; see also The Warder, 13 Jan. 1866.]

Daniel A O’Mara

called ‘Mara’; Brian Boroihme (Peter St. Theatre, [c.1810]); author of songs, The Widow Malone and Paddy O’Carroll. [See The Warder 13 Jan, 1866]

Edward Burke Fitzsimons (fl.1819)

Anzico and Coanza, op. (Crow St., 1819), mus. John Stevenson.

Thomas Luke Ternan d. 17 Oct 1846

Guggarossa, burl. (Rotunda, 20 Dec. 1821), the last night but one.

Alfred Howard fl. 1839

pseud. ‘Paddy Kelly’, O’Donoghue of the Lakes or The harlequin and the Leprechaun, panto. (Th. Royal, Dublin 14 & 15 Oct 1849) 1840; Darby O’Rourke and the Eagle or Harlequin and the Man in the Moon (Th. Royal Dublin, Jan 1842), opening part only.

Thomas Travers Burke f.1841

Aresmedi or The Revolution of Marguerita, hist. and mil. play, 5 acts, verse; printed London 1841.

John Crawford Wilson 1825-1890?

b. Cork, lived in London; Gitanilla or The Children of the Zincali, 3 act drama in prose (Lacy’s acting ed. of plays, 1850, vol. 48); Lent and Found, five acts (Holborn Th. 1872), based on author’s own poem, prev. published. [PI and CAB]

Joseph Stirling Coyne 1803-1838

[DNB] The Phrenologist, farce (Th. Royal, Dublin, 2 June 1835); The Honest Cheats, farce (Th. Royal Dublin 7 Apr 1836); The Four Lovers, farce (Th. Royal, Dublin, 14 Apr 1836) 1837; Valsha or The Slave Queen, burletta (Adelphi 30 Oct 1837) 1837; All For Love or The Lost Pleiad (Adelphi 16 Jan 1838), Lacy Collection, No. 61; Arajoon or The Conquest of Mysore, burletta (Adelphi 22 Oct. 1838), Dicks, 700; Helen Oakleigh (Eng. Op. Hs., 9 June 1840), Dicks 605; Satanas and the Spirit of Beauty, ballet (Adelphi, 11 Feb. 1841), Lacy 39; The World of Dreams, spect. (Hay 27 Dec 1841); My Friend the Captain, farc. (Hay. 20 July 1841), Dicks 740; Dobson and Company or My Turn Next, farce (Adelphi 13 Oct 1842), Dicks, 624; The Merchant and His Clerks (Adelphi 12 Dec 1842), Dicks, 642; Binks the Bagman, farc (Adelphi 13 Feb. 1843), Dicks 624; The Trumpeter’s Daughter, farce (Hay 7 Dec. 1843); Richard III, burl. (Adelphi 8 Feb. 1844) 1844; The Signal (Olymp. 8 Apr 1844), Lacy 110; Did You Ever Send your Wife to Camberwell?,farce (Adelphi 16 Mar 1846), Dicks 955; How to Settle an Account with Your Laundress, farce (Adelphi 26 July 1847) 1849, translated into European languages; This House to Be Sold (the Property of the late William Shakespeare), Inquire Within, extrav. (Adelphi 9 Sept 1847), Acting Nat. Drama, no. 19; The Fountain of Zeal or the Child of Air, spect. (Adelphi 24 Apr 1848); The Ppas de Fascination or Catching a Governor, farce (Hay 22 May 1848), Act. Nat. Drama, vol 19; Separate Maintenance, com. (Hay 12 Mar 1849), Duncomb, vol 64; The Hope of the Family, com. (hay 3 Dec. 1853), Lacy 13; The Secret Agent, com. (Hay 1 Sept 1855), Lacy 23; Love Knot, com. (DL 8 mar 1858), Lacy 35; Black Sheep; Box and cox Married and Settled, farce; Wanted 1,000 Young Milliners; The Little Rebel; The Woman in Red, drama in a Prologue and Three Acts, adptd. and altered from La Tireuse des Cartes (St. James 13 April 1868), Lacy 92; Everybody’s Friend (Hay 2 Apr 1859). Other works in collaboration with HC Coape, Francis Talford, and H. Hamilton. [Note that Kavanagh claims his pieces had no merit, whereas they are covered in num. standard introductions to Victorian drama. ]

Sarah Isdell fl. c.1820

Two dram. pieces, neither printed (though O’Donoghue thinks The Poor Gentleman (sic) was: The Poor Gentlewoman, com. (Crow St. 4 Mar 1811); The Cavern or The Outlaws, com. op. (Th. Royal, Dublin 22 Apr. 1825), with mus. by Stevenson. [Nicoll; DUM Oct. 1855, p.443; PI]

Maria Edgeworth 1767-1849

Three plays in Comic Dramas (1817), none acted: Love and Law, set in Ireland with dialect; The Two Guardians, com. set in England; and The Rose, Thistle and Shamrock, incl. sentimental portrayal of Irishman.

Gerald Griffin 1803-1840

Gissipus or Ten Forgotten Friend, trag., and the only surviving one of four which he Crticismenced; Shakespearan, set in Athens and Rome; printed 1842, never acted. See Poems and Plays by Gerald Griffin (Dublin 1929).

The Hon. Carloline Norton 1807-1862

The Martyr (1849), unacted.

James Sheridan Knowles 1784-1862

Chevalier de Grillon (1798), now lost; frags., Hersilia; A Spanish Play; Vaccination, and The Storm [see Miscell. Dramatic Works and Poems, 1873; also Poems, printed in Waterford, 1810]; Leo or the Gypsy, dram. (Waterford 1810); Brian Boroimhe or The Maid of Erin, drama (Belfast 1811; CG 20 Apr 1837), Dicks 670; Caius Gracchus, trag. (Belfast 13 Dec 1815); Virginius or the Liberation of Rome, trag. (Glasgow 1820), CG 17 May 1820) 1820; The Fatal Dowry, trag. (DL 5 Jan 1825) 1825, adapted Massinger; William Tell, drama (DL 11 May 1825) 1825; The Beggar’s Daughter of Bethnal Green, com. (DL 22 Nov 1828) 1828; Alfred the Great or The Patriot King, drama (DL 28 Apr 1831) 1831; The Hunchback, drama (CG 5 Apr 1832) 1832;The Vision of the Bard, masque (Edinburgh, 1 Oct 1832) 1832, in honour of Scott; The Wife, a Tale of Mantua, drama (CG 24 April 1833) 1833; The Beggar of Bethnal Green, com. (Vic. 1838), revision of The Beggar’s Daughter &c; The Bridal, trag. (Hay 26 June 1837), 1837, adapted Beaumont and Fletcher’s Maid’s Tragedy; The Love Chase, com. (Hay 9 Oct 1837) 1837; Woman’s Wit or Love’s Disguises, a drama (CG 23 May 1838)1838; The Maid of Mariendorpt, drama (Hay 9 Oct 1838) 1838; Love, drama (CG 4 Nov. 1839), 1840; John of Procida or The Bridals of Messina, trag. (CG 19 Aug. 1840) 1840, also played as The Bridals of Messina; Old Maids, com. (CG 12 Oct. 1841) 1841; The Rose of Aragon, trag. (Hay. 4 June 1842) 1842; The Secretary, drama (DL 24 Apr. 1843) 1843; The Rock of Rome, 1849; True unto Death, drama, 1866; The Duke of London, unacted, undated, MS, based on Fletcher’s The Noble Gentleman.

Hazlitt considered Knowles ‘the best tragic writer of the age’ (‘Spirit ofthe Age’, in Works); the character of Virginius was one of Macready’s most popular roles; The Hunchback, a drama of intrigue and romance, a tremendous success; Brian Boroihme a revision of O’Meara’s play, tells of the rescue of the daughter of Brian from Tormagnus by Prince O’Donohue. Occasionally introduced the domestic note.

Richard Brinsley Knowles 1820-1882

Son of the above; wrote The Maiden Aunt, 5 act verse com. (Hay 19 Nov. 1845) 1845

Edmund Ross

[PI] O’Ruark’s Hope, an Irish drama in five acts (Belfast), and Prince Cyrus, hist. trag. 5 acts (Belfast 1884).

John Todhunter

Alcestis, dram. poem (1897); The True Tragedy of Rienzi, Tribune of Rome (1881); Helena of Troas, dram. poem (1886); How Dreams Come True, dram. sketch in 2 scenes (1890); The Legend of Stauffenberg, dram. cantata (1890), mus. by JC Culwick; A Sicilian Idyll, past. (5 May 1890); The Poison Flower, phantasy (1891); Isolt of Ireland, legend in a prologue and three acts (1907); A Comedy of Sighs; The Black Cat, 3 act play (Ind. Th. at Opera Comique, 8 Dec. 1893) 1893; Isolt set on deck of ship on Irish sea, incl. Syngean dialogue.

George Francis Armstrong 1845-1906

Ugone, 5 act trag. (1870); The Tragedy of Israel in three parts: King Saul (1872), King David (1874), and King Solomon (1876).

Edwin Hamilton 1849-

His Ariadne, a natural drama in four scenes, 2872, won the TCD Vice-Chancellor’s Prize; Rhampsinitus, opera bouffe in 3 acts, mus. by A. Cellini; also Turco the Terrible with which according to Cabinet, he raised pantomime to a fine art.

Francis Frankfort Moore 1854

The Queen’s Room, one act verse (1891); The Mayflower, four acts verse, 1892, unpubished; Oliver Goldsmith, one act (Th. Royal, Limerick; Gaiety Th., Dublin 8 July 1892).

Chapter V: Wilde

Vera or The Nihilists (Union Square Th., 20 August 1883) 1880; The Duchess of Padua, a Tragedy of the XVI Century, (Broadway Theatre, NY, 26 Jan. 1891) 1883; Lady Windermere’s Fan (St. James, 20 Feb 1892) 1893; A Woman of No Importance (Hay 19 April 1893) 1894; An Ideal Husband (Hay. 3 Jan. 1895) 1899; The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (St James, 14 Feb 1895) 1899; Salomé: drame en un Acte (Paris, Theatre de l’Oeuvre, 11 Feb 1896; London, Bijou Theatre — New Stage Club, 10 May 1905); 1893, 1894; A Florentine Tragedy (Literary Theatre Soc., 10 June 1906) 1908.

Critical studies incl. Arthur Ransome, Oscar Wilde, a Critical Study (1912); Arthur Symons, A Study of Oscar Wilde (1930); LC Ingleby, Oscar Wilde (1907); Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde: his Life and Confessions (NY 1918), which includes an addendum by GB Shaw, ‘My Memories of Oscar Wilde’, where he characterizes Earnest as ‘his first really heartless play’.

Chapter 6: GB Shaw

Widowers’ Houses, com. (Royalty, 9 Dec. 1892) 1893; Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant, 2 vols, 1898 [vol i contains: Widowers’ Houses; Mrs. Warren’s Profession (Stage Soc., at New Lyric, 5 Jan. 1902); The Philander (Cripplegate Inst. 20 Feb. 1905; Court, 5 Feb 1907); vol ii contains: Arms and the Man (Avenue 21 Apr 1894); Candida (Th. Royal, South Croydon, 30 Mar 1895); The Man of Destiny (Grand Th., Croydon, 1st July 1897); You Never Can Tell (Stage Soc., at Royalty 26 1899).] The Plays for Puritans, 1901 [containing The Devil’s Disciple (Bayswater Bijou, 17 Apr 1897); Caesar and Cleopatra (Th. Royal, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 15 Mar 1899); and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (Stage Soc. at Strand, 16 Dec 1900). Man and Superman, a Comedy and a Philosophy (Court, 23 May 1905) 1903. Passion, Poison and Petrification or The Fatal Gazogene, trag. (Booth in Regent’s Park, 14 July 1905) 1905. John Bull’s Other Island (Court, 1st Nov. 1904), and Major Barbara (Court 28 Nov. 1905); also How He Lied to Her Husband (Berkeley Lyceum, NY 26 Sept. 1904) 1907. Interludes of the Playhouse (Playhouse 28 Jan. 1907) [in Daily Mail, 29 Jan. 1907, not reprinted. Press Cuttings, A Topical Sketch compiled from the Editorial and Correspondence &c. (Court 9 July 1909) 1909. The Doctor’s Dilemma (Court 20 Nov. 1906; Getting Married (Hay 12 May 1908); and The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet (Abbey Th., Dublin, 25 Aug. 1909) 1911. Misalliance (Duke of Yorks, 23 Feb 1910); The Dark Lady of the Sonnets (Hay 24 Nov. 1910); and Fanny’s First Play (Little, 19 Apr. 1911) 1914. Androcles and the Lion (St James, 1 Sept. 1913); Over-ruled (Duke of Yorks, 14 Oct 1912), Pygmalion (Lessing Th., Berlin, 1 Nov. 1913; His Majesty’s, 11 Apr 1914), 1916. Heartbreak House (Court 18 Oct. 1921); Great Catherine (Vaudeville, 18 Nov 1913); and Playlets of the War [containing O’Flaherty, VC (Lyric, Hammersmith, 20 Dec 1920); The Inca of Perusalem (Bermingham Rep., 9 Oct 1916); Augustus Does His Bit (Stage Soc., Court, 21 Jan. 1917); Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress (Coliseum 21 Jan. 1918), 1919. Back to Methuselah, A Metabiological Pentateuch (Bermingham Rep., 9 Oct 1923). Saint Joan, A Chronicle in Six Scenes and an Epilogue (Theatre Guild, NY, 28 Dec 1923; New, 26 Mar, 1924) 1924. Translations and Tomfooleries, 1924 [containing Jitta’s Atonement, adapted from S. Trebitsch (Schubert Th., NY 6 Jan 1923); The Admirable Bashville or Constancy Unrewarded; Press Cuttings; The Glimpse of Reality (Arts, 20 Nov. 1927); Passion, Poison and Petrifactions or the Fatal Gazogene; The Fascinating Foundling; The Music Cure (Little, 28 Jan 1914)]. The Applecart, A Political Extravaganza (Polish Th., Warsaw, 29 June 1929; Malvern Festival, Aug. 1929), 1930. Too True to be Good (Colonial th., Boston, 29 Feb. 1932; Malvern Fest., Aug. 1932); Village Wooing (Tunbridge Wells Rep. 30 Apr 1934); On the Rocks (Winter Gardens, 25 Nov. 1933), 1934. The Simpleton and the Unexpected Isles (Malvern Fest., 29 July 1935) 1935. Three Plays , 1936 [containing The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles; The Six of Calais (Regent’s Park, 17 July 1934); The Millionairess.]

Crticism: PP Howe, Bernard Shaw, a Critical Study (1915); Frank Harris, Frank Harris on Bernard Shaw, An Unauthorised Biography based on Firsthand Information, with a Postscript by Mr Shaw (1931); Archibald Henderson, Bernard Shaw, Playboy and Prophet, authorised (1932; first ed. 1911); SCS Gupta, The Art of Bernard Shaw (1936); JP Hackett, Shaw, George Versus Bernard (1937); Hesketh Pearson, Bernard Shaw, His Life and Personality (1942).

Chapter 7: The Abbey

The main facts, major new Irish productions listed; bibl. includes Malone (1929), Ena Ells-Fermor (1939), and Dawson Byrne, The Story of Ireland’s National Theatre (1939).

Chapter 8: The Gate Theatre

Martyn, splitting from The Abbey, started The Players’ Club and the Independent Theatre Company, 1901.

The Theatre of Ireland Co. founded 1909, and produced Macklin’s The True Born Irishman at the Molesworth Hall with some success; produced James Stephen’s, The Marriage of Julia Elizabeth on 17 Nov. 1911 in Hardwick St. Hall. The company was extinguished by 1914.

The Irish Theatre Co., founded by Martyn, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett aimed to produce non-peasant plays, Irish language plays, and English translations of European masters. Opened with Martyn’s The Dream Physician, 5 Nov. 1914, a satire on Moore. Opening at the Hardwick on 4 Jan. 1915, they produced The Troth, trans. into Irish; The Revolt, trans. from Villiers de l’Isle Adam; Eimar O’Duffy, The Pheonix of the Roof, and Tchekov’s The Swan Song.

Dublin Drama League (1919-1929) organised for continental plays, with Yeats as President, James Stephens as Vice-President and Lennox Robinson as secretary. Produced Srgjan Tucic’s The Liberators, 17 Feb 1919; other authors in the ten year period were, Strindberg, D’Annunzio, Sierra, Quintero Brothers, Eugene O’Neill, L’Normnad, Andreyev, Benevente, Euripides, Dunsany, Shaw, Cocteau, Bjornson, Schnitzler, Tchekov, Jules Romain, Evreinov, Pirandello, Philip Barry, Stark Young, Toler, Bribble, Cannan, Verhaeren, Flecker, Chesterton, Glaspell, and Hughes. All productions lasted two nights only, Sat. and Sun.

The Dublin Gate Theatre Co. formed in 1928 for full productions, with macliammóir and Edward, both come in 1927 from London; founded An Taidhbhearch na Gaillimhe, which opened there 27 Aug. 1928 with Mac Liammóir’s Diarmuid agus Grainne. Peer Gynt was performed at the Peacock on 14 Oct. 1929, and Salomé in 1930; opened at the Rotunda premisses with Goethe’s Faust, 17 Feb 1930. Lord Longford formed his own company — Longford Productions — in 1936.

For list abstracted from Kavanagh’s appendix of Irish and Irish-subject plays (itself taken from Holloway in Stephen Brown’s Guide to Books about Ireland), see \library\biblio\ir_plays.