74-732: The history of Irish theatre begins in the Middle Ages and was for a long time confined to the courts of the Gaelic and "Old English" – descendants of 12th-century Norman invaders – inhabitants of Ireland. The first theatre building in Ireland was the Werburgh Street Theatre , founded in 1637, followed by the Smock Alley Theatre in 1662. From the 17th century, theatrical productions in Ireland tended to serve
148-496: A Woman's , two plays from the John Fletcher canon, and anonymous plays titled The General and The Toy. The earliest published play by an Irish author, Henry Burnell's Landgartha , was acted at the theatre on 17 March 1640 . Shirley wrote Prologues for all of these works. Shirley may also have brought some London actors with him to Dublin. Shirley had functioned as the house dramatist for Queen Henrietta's Men , but
222-503: A breakthrough with John Bull's Other Island (1904). Shaw was extremely prolific, and his collected writings filled 36 volumes. Many of his plays are now forgotten, but a number, including Major Barbara , Saint Joan (usually considered his masterpiece) and Pygmalion are still regularly performed. Pygmalion was the basis for the movie My Fair Lady , a fact which benefitted the National Gallery of Ireland as Shaw had left
296-498: A detailed survey and atlas of Great Britain, the King appointed Ogilby Royal Cosmographer . Thus, at about the age of 70 and with the scientific advice of Robert Hooke, Ogilby began work on Britannia , the project for which he is best known among cartographers. In 1675, Ogilby issued his atlas, which he titled Britannia , in the form of a strip map for each major route. The work contains 100 strip road maps that are accompanied by
370-424: A double-sided page of text giving additional advice for the map's use, and notes on the towns shown and the pronunciations of their names. The roads were measured using a surveyor's wheel , which Ogilby called his "way-wiser", and were plotted at one inch to the statute mile – a scale of 1:63,360 – an Ogilby innovation. The maps include details such as the configurations of hills, bridges and ferries, and
444-577: A long career as a novelist and poet before his first play, Waiting for Godot (1953) made him famous. This play, along with his second, Endgame , is one of the great works of absurdist theatre. Beckett was awarded for the Nobel Prize in 1969. The Lyric Theatre , founded in 1944 by Austin Clarke was based in the Abbey until 1951 and produced many of Clarke's own verse plays . From the mid-1950s,
518-509: A member of his troop of guards. While in Dublin, Ogilby established Ireland's first theatre, the Werburgh Street Theatre . In 1637, as a consequence of this enterprise and to discourage competitors, Wentworth appointed Ogilby Master of the Revels for Ireland, with power to permit and forbid performances. The theatre remained open for four years; it had mixed success but it had to be closed as
592-597: A new house in Whitefriars , and was ready to resume his printing and publishing work. Ogilby's next major venture was a series of atlases of China, Japan, Africa, Asia and America. The first of these was An Embassy from the East India Company of the United Provinces... , first published in 1669 for Ogilby by John Macock and then reprinted in better quality by Ogilby himself in 1673. This book
666-538: A novel, but his plays probably represent his most enduring legacy. Wilde's first stage success came with Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), which resulted in his becoming the most talked about dramatist in London. He followed this up with A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and his most famous play The Importance of Being Earnest that same year. With these plays, Wilde came to dominate late- Victorian era British theatre. His plays are noted for
740-514: A personal collection of his horoscopes of notable people. The horoscope required precise data; Ashmole gives the exact location of Ogilby's birth as "Killemeure" ( Kirriemuir near Dundee ) and the exact date and time as 17 November 1600 at 04:00. Ogilby believed himself to be at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie , given at birth to John Ogilby (senior), a well-off gentleman's tailor in Edinburgh, to be adopted. He
814-475: A prisoner of war in Dunkirk from July 1626 to June 1627. From June to November 1627, Ogilby was one of the few survivors of the ill-fated English Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré , returning to England as acting Captain of a supply ship. In August 1633, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford , the newly appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland , invited Ogilby to Ireland to be dancing tutor to his wife and children, and
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#1732793365976888-593: A result of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 . With theatre and dancing ruled out, Ogilby spent his time learning Latin and then translating the complete works of Virgil . Ogilby returned to England in January 1647, being shipwrecked on his homeward journey. The manuscript of his Virgil translation, which he had carefully placed in waterproof wrapping, survived the incident and was published in October 1648 with
962-438: A severe outbreak of bubonic plague , from May 1636 to October 1637.) Shirley wrote four plays for the theatre, The Royal Master , The Doubtful Heir , The Constant Maid , and St. Patrick for Ireland ; the first of these plays premiered on 1 January 1638 , the last was performed in the autumn of 1639 . During the same period, the theatre also performed Jonson's The Alchemist , Middleton's No Wit, No Help Like
1036-471: A small minority predate the 20th century. The Gaiety Theatre in Dublin dates to 1871, and despite multiple alterations it retains several Victorian era features and remains Ireland's longest-established, continuously producing public theatre. The Theatre Royal, Waterford dates to 1876, but retains some structural material from the 1785 theatre building which preceded it, and is considered Ireland's oldest continually operating theatre. The Smock Alley Theatre
1110-478: A teacher. Information about John Ogilby's early adulthood is limited. According to Ashmole's horoscope, in 1625, Ogilby suffered from a "double quotidian ague" – a form of malaria – he most probably contracted while fighting in the Low Countries under Colonel Sir Charles Rich. In May 1626, he is recorded as holding the rank of lieutenant in the army of Count Mansfield , subsequently becoming
1184-454: A tendency to mythologise quotidian situations, and a particularly strong focus on writings in dialects of Hiberno-English, the Abbey was to create a style that held a strong fascination for future Irish dramatists. Indeed, it could almost be said that the Abbey created the basic elements of a national theatrical style. This period also saw a rise in the writing of plays in Irish, especially after
1258-552: A tradition of dramatic performance going back to 1366, and the Dublin company, much attenuated, set up in their new home. At least one new play was published in Kilkenny; A Tragedy of Cola's Fury, OR, Lirenda's Misery , a blatantly political work with the Lirenda of the title being an anagram of Ireland. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1661, John Ogilby was commissioned to design the triumphal arches and write masques for
1332-590: Is William Congreve , one of the most important writers for the late 18th London stage. Although born in Yorkshire , Congreve grew up in Ireland and studied with Jonathan Swift in Kilkenny and at Trinity College Dublin . After graduating, Congreve moved to London to study law at the Temple and pursue a literary career. His first play, The Old Bachelor (1693) was sponsored by John Dryden , and he went on to write at least four more plays. The last of these, The Way of
1406-667: Is not recorded but the British Museum has a copy of an announcement by Robert Morden, a factor , of a sale of "undisposed" books and maps from Ogilby's collection with an asserted value of £517.50 (equivalent to about £115,000 today). In the years that followed his death, Ogilby's reputation as a poetic translator suffered from attacks made on him by John Dryden in his satirical work MacFlecknoe , and by Alexander Pope in The Dunciad . Following their lead, Scottish philosopher David Hume used Ogilby's work to illustrate
1480-617: The Encyclopaedia Londinensis (about 1800) reads: The chief merit of his Homer consists in a commendable and uniform fidelity to the sense of his author. As a poet, his pretensions to praise of any kind can scarcely be supported: he has neither animation of thought, accuracy of taste, sensibility of feeling, nor ornament of diction. Such judgements stuck, and it is only since the mid-20th century that Ogilby's work has again been given scholarly attention, particularly his versions of Aesop's Fables . These, according to
1554-535: The Abbey Theatre . The history of this theatre is well documented, and its importance can be seen from the list of writers whose plays were first performed here in the early days of the 20th century. These included W. B. Yeats , Lady Gregory , John Millington Synge , George Moore , and Seán O'Casey . Equally importantly, through the introduction by Yeats, via Ezra Pound , of elements of the Noh theatre of Japan,
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#17327933659761628-668: The Common Council of the City of London contracted Ogilby to "compose speeches, songs and inscriptions" for the coronation procession from the Tower of London to Whitehall . A year later, Ogilby was again made Master of the Revels in Ireland, and he started building a new theatre in Smock Alley, Dublin . The libretto of Katherine Philips ' musical play Pompey , which was performed at Smock Alley in 1663, credits Ogilby as
1702-619: The Saint Werbrugh Street Theatre or the New Theatre, was a seventeenth-century theatre in Dublin , Ireland . Scholars and historians of the subject generally identify it as the "first custom-built theatre in the city," "the only pre- Restoration playhouse outside London," and the first Dublin theatre. The Werburgh Street Theatre was established by John Ogilby at least by 1637 and perhaps as early as 1634. It
1776-749: The Unitarian Church at St Stephen's Green, Dublin was home to Amharclann an Damer/The Damer Theatre . The Damer produced both professional and amateur Irish language theatre. The world premier of Brendan Behan 's An Giall ( The Hostage ) took place here in 1958. The theatre closed in 1981. Behan went on to be an extremely popular dramatist, particularly through his work with Joan Littlewood 's Theatre Royal in Stratford, East London. Other important Irish dramatists of this period include: Denis Johnston , Thomas Kilroy , Tom Murphy , Hugh Leonard , Frank McGuinness , and John B. Keane . In general,
1850-420: The Abbey was the dominant influence in theatre in Ireland across the 20th century. Beckett's example has been almost entirely ignored, although his plays are regularly performed on the Irish stage. Behan, in his use of song and direct address to the audience, was influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Denis Johnston used modernist techniques including found texts and collage , but their works had little impact on
1924-501: The Abbey. The task of presenting innovative theatre in Irish was taken up by An Damer, a theatre in the heart of Dublin. It continued the tradition of staging both original work and translations. There were professional directors working there, and the playwrights included Eoghan Ó Tuairisc , Seán Ó Tuama , Brendan Behan and Máiréad Ní Ghráda . It served as a training ground for actors like Niall Tóibín who achieved distinction elesewhere. It lost its state subsidy in 1981 and closed, and
1998-571: The English-speaking world. Wilde's contemporary George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was a very different kind of writer. Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876 intending to become a novelist. Here he became active in socialist politics and became a member of the Fabian Society . He was also a very public vegetarian. His writing for the stage was influenced by Henrik Ibsen . His early political plays were not popular, but he made
2072-584: The Government take any steps for the publication of the results of the survey, everything being left, in this respect, to private and commercial enterprise. Ogilby died in September 1676 and was buried in the vault of St Bride's Church , one of Sir Christopher Wren 's new London churches. In his will, dated 27 February 1675, Ogilby bequeathed his entire estate to "my deare wife Christian Ogilby and to William Morgan, her grandchild". The value of his estate
2146-650: The Great Hall in Dublin Castle . The play had been written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton for the 1561/2 Christmas festivities at the Inner Temple in London and appears to have been selected because it was a story of a divided kingdom descending into anarchy that was applicable to the situation in Ireland at the time of the performance. Mountjoy started a fashion, and private performances became quite commonplace in great houses all over Ireland over
2220-464: The London stage in the 18th century. Goldsmith (1728–1774) was born in Roscommon and grew up in extremely rural surroundings. He entered Trinity College in 1745 and graduated in 1749. He returned to the family home, and in 1751, began to travel, finally settling in London in 1756, where he published poetry, prose and two plays, The Good-Natur'd Man 1768 and She Stoops to Conquer 1773. This latter
2294-581: The National Folk Theatre of Ireland, was founded in Tralee, County Kerry, by Pat Ahern . In the 1990s and 2000s a new wave of theatre companies arrived. These include: Barabbas, Barnstorm Theatre Company, Bedrock, Blue Raincoat, B*spoke, The Corn Exchange, Corcadorca, Fishamble, KATS Theatre Group, Loose Canon, Ouroborous and Pan Pan. A number of these companies had a significant portion or, in some cases, all of their Arts Council funding cut at
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2368-623: The Restoration , that country's first Theatre Royal . Ogilby played a significant part in arrangements for the coronation of King Charles II . Following the Great Fire of 1666 , Ogilby's large-scale map of the City of London was founded on precise survey work, and his Britannia is the first road atlas of England and Wales to be based on surveys and measurements, and drawn to scale. John Ogilby's birthplace and parentage are historically uncertain; most early biographies of Ogilby rely on
2442-485: The Theatre Royal, Queens' Theatre , and The Gaiety Theatre opened during the 19th century. However, the one constant for the next 200 years was that the main action in the history of Irish theatre happened outside Ireland itself, mainly in London. The 18th century saw the emergence of two major Irish dramatists, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan , who were two of the most successful playwrights on
2516-526: The World (1700) is the one Congreve work regularly revived on the modern stage. However, at the time of its creation, it was a relative failure and he wrote no further works for the theatre. With the accession to the throne of William of Orange , the whole ethos of Dublin Castle, including its attitude to the theatre, changed. A theatre at Smock Alley stayed in existence until the 1780s and new theatres, such as
2590-488: The beginning of 2010 and it remains to be seen if they will continue to operate. Irish-language theatre has enjoyed periods of remarkable productivity since its beginnings in the era of the Gaelic Revival , despite a frequent lack of trained actors and directors, a small and scattered audience and difficulty in finding permanent theatre spaces. The earliest plays were often based on folk themes or had as their aim
2664-555: The beginning of the 20th century, theatres and theatre companies dedicated to the staging of Irish plays and the development of indigenous writers, directors and performers began to emerge. This allowed many of the most significant Irish dramatists to learn their trade and establish their reputations in Ireland rather than in Great Britain or the United States. Few historic theatre buildings survive in Ireland, and only
2738-550: The composer of the tunes. His second sojourn in Ireland was short-lived; in July 1664, he returned to plague-stricken London, leaving his step-son to take his place. In 1665, he published a second, revised edition of The Fables of Aesop , which was this time illustrated with prints by Wenceslaus Hollar . During the Great Fire of London in 1666, Ogilby's house in Shoe Lane , together with its printing works and most of his stock,
2812-860: The dramatists who came after them. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of companies emerged to challenge the Abbey's dominance and introduce different styles and approaches. These included Focus Theatre , The Passion Machine, The Children's T Company , the Project Theatre Company , Red Kettle , Druid Theatre , TEAM and Field Day . These companies nurtured a number of writers, actors, and directors who went on to be successful in London, Broadway and Hollywood or in other literary fields. These include Enda Walsh , Joe O Byrne , Peter Sheridan , Brian Friel , Stephen Rea , Garry Hynes , Martin McDonagh , Conor McPherson , Marina Carr , Jimmy Murphy , Billy Roche and Gabriel Byrne . In 1974 Siamsa Tíre,
2886-573: The following thirty years. The Werburgh Street Theatre in Dublin is generally identified as the "first custom-built theatre in the city," "the only pre- Restoration playhouse outside London," and the "first Irish playhouse." In 1642, as a result of the English Civil War , Dublin Royalists were forced to flee the city. Many of them went to Kilkenny to join a confederacy of Old English and Irish that formed in that city. Kilkenny had
2960-475: The formation, in 1928, of An Taidhbhearc , a theatre dedicated to the Irish language. The Gate Theatre , also founded in 1928 under the direction of Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir , introduced Irish audiences to many of the classics of the European stage. The twentieth century saw a number of Irish playwrights come to prominence. Samuel Beckett is probably the most significant of these. Beckett had
3034-745: The four actors' careers. "The Theatre came to a sudden end with the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641. In October the Lords Justices prohibited playing there; and shortly after, we are told, the building was 'ruined and spoiled, and a cow-house made of the stage.'" (Shirley had sailed for England on 18 April 1640.) Three and a half centuries later, the site of the former theatre was the yard of Kerfoot's Dining Rooms at 13 Werburgh St., Dublin . 53°20′32″N 6°16′12″W / 53.3421°N 6.2701°W / 53.3421; -6.2701 John Ogilby John Ogilby , Ogelby , or Oglivie (17 November 1600 – 4 September 1676)
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3108-600: The help of Robert Hooke , who made multiple petitions to the Crown, the Court of Common Council and Court of Aldermen of the Corporation of London and to noble families. Writing in 1925, geographer Sir Herbert Fordham said: twice only ... has there been such [measurement of roads]: that of John Ogilby, in 1671-5, and that of John Cary, quite at the end of the following century. In neither case, singularly enough, did
3182-459: The idea that common sense frequently appeals to a "standard of taste" in aesthetic matters: Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between Ogilby and [John] Milton, or [John] Bunyan and [Joseph] Addison, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as Teneriffe [ sic ], or a pond as extensive as the ocean. Other writers were even more critical; Ogilby's entry in
3256-472: The interior, structurally the building remains exactly as it was designed and first constructed, and it is thus considered the oldest purpose-built theatre building in Ireland. Although there would appear to have been performances of plays on religious themes in Ireland from as early as the 14th century, the first well-documented instance of a theatrical production in Ireland is a 1601 staging of Gorboduc presented by Lord Mountjoy Lord Deputy of Ireland in
3330-534: The lightness of their wit, but he also contrived to address some serious issues around sexual and class roles and identity, as he wrote himself 'treating the serious things lightly and the light things seriously'. Events in Wilde's personal life were to overtake his literary success and he died in Paris in 1900. He remains one of the great figures in the history of Irish theatre and his plays are frequently performed all over
3404-569: The major writer of comedies of his day. However, his next few plays were not as successful and Boucicault found himself in debt. He recovered some of his reputation with The Corsican Brothers (1852), a well constructed melodrama. In 1853, he moved to New York, where he soon became a hit with plays like The Poor of New York (1857), Dot (1859, based on Charles Dickens 's The Cricket on the Hearth ) and The Octoroon (1859). These plays tackled issues such as urban poverty and slavery . Boucicault
3478-548: The most significant London playwright of the late 18th century with plays like The School for Scandal and The Critic . He was owner of the Drury Lane Theatre , which he bought from David Garrick . The theatre burned down in 1809, and Sheridan lived out the rest of his life in reduced circumstances. He is buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey . After Sheridan, the next Irish dramatist of historical importance
3552-438: The new king's entrance into London. Ogilby was reinstated as Master of the Revels and returned to Dublin to open a new theatre in Smock Alley . Although starting well, this new theatre was essentially under the control of the administration in Dublin Castle and staged mainly pro-Stuart works and Shakespearean classics. As a result, Irish playwrights and actors of real talent were drawn to London. An early example of this trend
3626-500: The new theatre companies that arose to replace it lacked a permanent home. The Taibhdhearc , a Galway theatre founded in 1928, was explicitly devoted to Irish-language productions. Prominent among those involved were the writer and actor Micheál MacLiammóir and his companion Hilton Edwards, who were also involved with the Gate Theatre in Dublin. The Taibhdhearc has over the years mounted critically praised productions, but there
3700-477: The notes of his assistant John Aubrey that were made for Aubrey's Brief Lives , a collection of biographies of Ogilby and others. The accuracy of Aubrey's account is questionable; Aubrey noted Ogilby was evasive about his origins, saying only he was born "near Edinburgh" in 1600 "of a gentleman's family". Later scholarship has discovered in 1653, Ogilby consulted the noted astrologer Elias Ashmole , and that Ashmole subsequently included Ogilby's horoscope in
3774-507: The plague crisis of 1636–37 had disrupted that company. Four veterans of the troupe — William Allen , Michael Bowyer , Hugh Clark , and William Robbins — disappeared from the London theatre scene for the time that Shirley was in Dublin; they reappeared at the end of the Dublin venture in 1640, when all four joined the King's Men . The years of the Werburgh fill the holes in
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#17327933659763848-624: The political purposes of the English colonial administration, but as more theatres opened and the popular audience grew, a more diverse range of entertainments were staged. Many Dublin-based theatres developed links with their London equivalents and performers and productions from the British capital frequently found their way to the Irish stage. However, almost all Irish playwrights from William Congreve to George Bernard Shaw found it necessary to leave their native island to establish themselves. At
3922-474: The relative sizes of towns. Ogilby is noted in cartography for these innovations. The cost of the survey and the resulting maps is not known but in a prospectus, Ogilby quotes a preiminary estimate made by the "Lords Referees" – advisors to the Privy Council – as £14,000 (equivalent to about £2.9 million today). Ogilby worked hard to raise this considerable sum by holding lotteries, and with
3996-647: The royalties of the play to the gallery. A statue of the playwright now stands outside the gallery entrance. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. A sea change in the history of the Irish theatre came with the establishment in Dublin in 1899 of the Irish Literary Theatre by W. B. Yeats , Lady Gregory , George Moore and Edward Martyn . This was followed by the Irish National Theatre Society , later to become
4070-406: The sponsorship of Royalist gentlefolk and nobility. In 1650, Ogilby married rich heiress Christian Hunsdon, a widow in her sixties and about 17 years Ogilby's senior. The following year, he published the first edition of his work The fables of Aesop paraphras'd in verse, and adorn'd with sculpture and illustrated with annotations , which was illustrated by Francis Cleyn . Ogilby's version of
4144-404: The stereotype of the drunken, hotheaded, garrulous Irishman that had been common on the British stage since the time of Shakespeare. Other Irish dramatists of the period include John Banim and Gerald Griffin , whose novel The Collegians formed the basis for The Colleen Bawn . Boucicault is widely regarded as the wittiest Irish dramatist between Sheridan and Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). Wilde
4218-427: The strengthening of nationalism. It was not until the late nineteen twenties that a real sophistication began to be achieved, and even then the work depended largely on the work of gifted amateurs working through dramatic societies and the few available theatres. They were handicapped by the lack of a longstanding dramatic tradition such as existed in English, and it has been argued that, with outstanding exceptions, there
4292-464: The text was very successful, running to five editions in the following 15 years. During the next few years, Ogilby learnt Greek with the intention of creating and publishing a new translation of Homer 's Iliad ; he planned it to be a magnificent undertaking with an estimated production cost of £5,000. The venture required sponsorship to pay for the engraved illustrations , each of which would cost about £10, but he secured only 47 sponsors. When
4366-472: The upper classes. In 1617, Draper became a barrister at Gray's Inn and released Ogilby, who by then was highly accomplished as a dancer and a teacher, from the apprenticeship, allowing him to set up as a master in his own right and to take part in theatrical performances. A fall while dancing in a masque in February 1619 (aged 18), however, lamed him for life and ended his career as a dancer, though not as
4440-731: The visual, including masks and puppetry) and the Belfast group Aisling Ghéar, with an interest in experimentation. Dublin, traditionally a theatrical centre, still lacks a permanent theatre devoted solely to Irish-language productions, though the Peacock Theatre continues to present plays in Irish. In the words of Irish theatre historian Philip O’Leary, "theatre in Irish has been a living if often invisible art form, with its companies, venues, prizes and, of course, critics". In spite of its problems, it shows continuing vitality. Werburgh Street Theatre The Werburgh Street Theatre, also
4514-698: The work published in March 1660, it had 600 pages but was substantially less illustrated than Ogilby had planned. With his known Royalist sympathies, Ogilby was a risk to potential patrons who needed to avoid offending the Puritan Commonwealth government . The Restoration of Charles II brought favour back to Ogilby. In 1661, he was granted the unpaid title "Master of the Royal Imprimerie " (King's Printer). With Charles' coronation scheduled for 23 April 1661 – St. George's Day –
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#17327933659764588-472: Was Dion Boucicault (1820–1890). Boucicault was born in Dublin but went to England to complete his education. At school, he began writing dramatic sketches and soon took up acting under the stage name of Lee Morton. His first play was Legend of Devil's Dyke 1838 in which he acted himself in Brighton . His first London production was London Assurance 1841. This was a great success and he seemed set to become
4662-523: Was a Scottish translator, impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was probably at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie , though neither overtly acknowledged this. Ogilby's most-noted works include translations of the works of Virgil and Homer , and his version of the Fables of Aesop . Ogilby established Ireland's first theatre in Werburgh Street , Dublin, and following
4736-435: Was a huge success and is still regularly revived. Sheridan (1751–1816) was born in Dublin into a family with a strong literary and theatrical tradition. His mother was a writer and his father was manager of Smock Alley Theatre. The family moved to England in the 1750s, and Sheridan attended Harrow Public School . His first play, The Rivals 1775, was performed at Covent Garden and was an instant success. He went on to become
4810-697: Was a roofed and enclosed building, or what was then called a "private theatre" like the contemporaneous Cockpit Theatre or Salisbury Court Theatre in London (as opposed to a large open-air "public theatre" like the Globe or the Red Bull ). According to one report, the theatre "had a gallery and pit, but no boxes, except one on the stage for the then Lord Deputy of Ireland , the Earl of Strafford ." Ogilby had come to Ireland in Strafford's entourage, and Strafford, who
4884-409: Was also involved in getting the 1856 law on copyright passed through Congress . His last New York play was The Colleen Bawn (1860). In that year, Boucicault returned to London to stage The Colleen Bawn and the play ran for 247 performances at The Adelphi Theatre. He wrote several more successful plays, including The Shaughran (1875) and Robert Emmet (1884). These later plays helped perpetuate
4958-519: Was always tension between proponents of original and translated drama. There was a constant need for new scripts and for sufficient funding to establish the Taibhdhearc as a national theatre. The number of full-length plays in Irish being presented there is presently at a minimum. Irish-language theatre still depends upon a mixture of amateur and professional talent. Current companies include Aisteoirí Bulfin, Fíbín (with an emphasis on physicality and
5032-522: Was born in Dublin into a literary family and studied at Trinity College, where he had a brilliant career. In 1874 he won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford . Here he began his career as a writer, winning the Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna . His studies were cut short during his second year at Oxford when his father died leaving large debts. During a short but glittering literary career, Wilde wrote poetry, short stories, criticism and
5106-444: Was converted, in 2012, from an early 19th century church building which incorporated fabric from the 18th century theatre which preceded it, and is built on the foundations of the first Theatre Royal from 1662. It is thus often referred to as Ireland's "oldest new theatre" or "newest old theatre". The Lord Amiens Theatre was built as a private theatre wing of Aldborough House in 1795, and used as such until 1830. Despite alterations to
5180-438: Was destroyed; he estimated he had lost £3,000. After the Great Fire, the Corporation of London appointed Ogilby and his wife's grandson William Morgan as "sworn viewers", members of a group of four trustworthy gentlemen directed by Robert Hooke , to plot disputed property in the city. Ogilby later made what he called "the most accurate Survey of the City of London and Libertyes therof that has ever been done". By 1668, he had
5254-408: Was fond of the theatre, gave him every encouragement. John Aubrey termed it "a pretty little theatre." No trace of it survives, but it was located on Werburgh Street near Dublin Castle . The playhouse was closely associated, during its short lifetime, with James Shirley , the prominent London dramatist who spent the years 1637–40 in Dublin. (Shirley left London when the theatres closed due to
5328-472: Was little influence at the time from the European classics. From 1942 the Abbey Theatre began occasional productions in Irish; in time this led to a concentration on pantomime at the expense of longer and more serious work. New theatre companies emerged to redress this, and An Phéacóg Nua (The New Peacock Theatre), a small theatre specialising in Irish-language drama, was created as an extension of
5402-497: Was most likely educated at the Merchant Taylors' grammar school in London. At eleven years old, Ogilby was indentured as an apprentice to John Draper, one of just three licensed dance masters in London. At the time, a dancing master had expertise in "grammar (elocution), rhetoric, logic, philosophy, history, music, mathematics and in other arts": ability to dance in "Old Measures" was considered an essential skill for
5476-639: Was substantially a translation of Johan Nieuhof 's Dutch publication of the same name with English copies of the Dutch engravings, supplemented by the first English translation of sections of Athanasius Kircher 's China Illustrata , relating various information from the Jesuit China Mission . Ogilby's Africa appeared in 1670 and was followed in rapid succession by Atlas Japanennsis (1670), America (1671), Atlas Chinensis (1671) and Asia (1673). In 1671, in response to his proposal to make
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