ciding factor in the fates of man and woman, this
insistence upon the importance of the family, this subordination of the
rights of the individual. Mr. Murray wished to write in "Maurice Harte"
a play of the very heart of Irish Catholic life, and such a play he has
written, a play that marks no decline, either in characterization or
situation, from "Birthright," and to say that is to give "Maurice Harte"
praise of the highest.

MR. S. LENNOX ROBINSON

Mr. Lennox Robinson, like most of the Abbey Theatre dramatists, has
chosen to write about the ground under his feet. The son of a clergyman
whose charges have been in the southwest of Ireland, Mr. Robinson spent
his boyhood and youth in the Bandon Valley. He had been trying his hand
at writing from the time that he was ten years old, editing an amateur
magazine as he grew older, feeling about for the thing that he could do.
A visit of the Abbey Theatre Company to Cork was the awakening. He saw
a new acting, he saw a new art of the stage, and he knew as he saw that
it was in drama his work lay. It was not, however, for the Cork Dramatic
Society that he did his first play, but for the Abbey Theatre. "The
Clancy Name" was put on on October 8, 1908, when its author was but four
days past his twenty-second birthday. What this first version was like I
do not know, but Mr. Robinson has reprinted the second version, put on
with the full strength of the National Theatre Society at the Abbey
Theatre on September 30, 1909. As printed, it is an ironic little play,
recording the great day in the life of the Widow Clancy, the day on
which she pays off a five years' loan and stands without a debt of any
kind, her farm all her own, the Clancy name respected throughout her
world. But on this day of her triumph, when she would add to her
happiness by making a match for her son, John cannot rejoice with her,
and on her questioning him as to his moodiness he blurts out that he is
the man who killed James Power, a quiet man whose unexplained
disappearance is the mystery of the countryside. Worse yet, John insists
that he will give himself up to the authorities. It is terrible to know
one's son a murderer; it is intolerable to think of a Clancy being
hanged and of the glory of the name forever departed. She persuades him
finally not to tell, but he fears he will, so, when the chance comes, he
finds the only way out, the way of peace for his mother and peace for
himself. A car driven by a dru