SOURCE: Dalsimer, Adele M. “Players in the Western World: The Abbey Theatre's American Tours.” Eire-Ireland: A Journal of Irish Studies 16, no. 1 (1981): 75-93.

In the following historically-grounded essay, Dalsimer argues that the Abbey's American tours between 1911 and 1914 (at the height of the Irish Literary Renaissance) and between 1931-1938 consolidated the Abbey's international reputation but alarmed Irish nationalists, who feared that the Abbey's representation of Ireland and the Irish would adversely affect American support for Irish independence.

Between 1911 and the outbreak of World War II, the Abbey Theatre made seven tours of the United States and Canada—three between 1911 and 1914, and four between 1931 and 1938.¹ Undertaken at times when the Abbey's fiscal situation was most grave, the American visits were crucial to the Theatre's survival, yet its historians and critics have paid the tours little attention.² Their neglect is more surprising when one considers the unusual, if fortunate, relationship that developed...