and Alice Milligan were staged with English-trained actors in
the casts; and a Gaelic play--the first ever presented in a theatre
in Ireland--was also given during the third season. It was _The
Twisting of the Rope_, by Dr. Douglas Hyde, and was played at the
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, on October 21, 1901, by a Gaelic Amateur
Dramatic Society coached by W.G. Fay. The author filled the principal
part with distinction.

It was while rehearsing this play that the thought came to Fay: "Why
not have my little company of Irish-born actors--the Ormond Dramatic
Society--appear in plays by Irish writers instead of in the ones they
have been giving for years?" And the thought soon ripened into
realization. His brother, Frank, had dreamed of such a company since
he read of the small beginnings out of which the Norwegian Theatre
had grown; and just then, seeing some of "AE's" (George Russell's)
play, _Deirdre_, in the _All Ireland Review_, he asked the author if
he would allow them to produce it, and, consent being given, the
company put it into rehearsal at once. "AE" got for them from Yeats
_Kathleen-Ni-Houlihan_, to make up the programme. Thus it was that
this company of amateurs and poets, now known as the Abbey Players,
came into existence, and at St. Teresa's Hall, Clarendon Street,
Dublin, gave their first performance on April 2, 1902.

Shortly afterwards they took a hall at the back of a shop in Camden
Street, where they rehearsed and gave a few public performances. On
"AE" declining to be their president, Frank Fay suggested the name of
W.B. Yeats, and he was elected, and in that way came again into the
movement in which he has figured so largely ever since.

The company played occasionally in the Molesworth Hall, and produced
there, among other pieces, Synge's _In the Shadow of the Glen_
(October 8, 1903) and _Riders to the Sea_ (February 25, 1904);
Yeats's _The Hour Glass_ (March 14, 1903) and _The King's Threshold_
(October 8, 1903); Lady Gregory's _Twenty-five_ (March 14,1903); and
Padraic Colum's _Broken Soil_ (December 3, 1903).

On March 26, 1904, the company paid a flying one-day visit to the
Royalty, London, and Miss A.E.F. Horniman, who had given Shaw, Yeats,
and Dr. John Todhunter their first real start as playwrights at the
Avenue, London, in March-April, 1894 (Shaw had had his first play,
_Widowers' Houses_, played by the Independent Theatre in 1892), saw
the performance, and was so impressed that she thought