The site on which the present theatre is built is one with long associations with Dublin and national public entertainment, having facilitated circuses, variety shows and theatrical performances of sorts before becoming a symbol of the Irish literary revival in the early years of the 20th century.
Now Ireland’s National Theatrr, founded by no less that William Butler Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory over a hundred years ago, the theatre has not been shy of controversy over the years, with near riots at the use of language associated with adultery in Synge’s Playboy of the Western World and again during O’Casey’s Plough and The Stars, a slight not forgotten by the latter who emigrated afterwards.
In the intervening years since, the Abbey has hosted many classics from Brian Friel, Tom Murphy, Frank McGuinness, Hugh Leonard and many more, providing a welcome escape and entertainment for its audiences weekly over the last century surviving fires, coups and revolting boards!
