SOURCE: Russell, George W. “The Coming of Age of the Abbey.” In The Abbey Theatre: Interviews and Recollections, edited by E. H. Mikhail, pp. 136-40. London, United Kingdom: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1988.

In the following essay, first published in The Irish Statesman on January 2, 1926, Russell, an important figure in the Irish Literary Renaissance who signed his poetry with the initials “A. E.,” discusses his experiences with the Abbey Theatre at the height of the Literary Revival.

About a quarter of a century ago Ireland began to assert and practise its right to cultural independence, making it apparent to the world that it had a distinction, a spiritual personality of its own. That personality asserted itself in many directions. It began to drink at the fountain of its own youth, the almost forgotten fountain of Gaelic culture, and at the same time to be intensely modern, to create a literature...