To-day, as the world knows, we have poets neither few nor
unremarkable--Mr. Yeats chief among them; and one of the intellectual
landmarks of Dublin is the Abbey Theatre, standing obscurely enough,
but not obscure in the world. Here have been produced the poetical
dramas of Mr. Yeats himself, the still more notable prose dramas of Mr.
Synge, together with much work of Lady Gregory, William Boyle, Padraic
Colum, and many lesser names; and they have been produced by a company
of Irish actors--first formed by Mr. W. G. Fay--who have displayed an
amazing range of talent. Any visitor to Dublin who cares for a beauty
and an interest wholly unlike that of the usual machine-made play ought
to try and see a performance at the Abbey.
For the artistic life of Ireland--past, present, and to come--Dublin
is your only ground of study. Among the things which every lover of
Ireland should have seen are two--the Book of Kells in the Trinity
College Library, the Cross of Cong in the Kildare Street National
Museum. The craftsmanship of art was never carried to a higher
point than in the marvellous illumination of that manuscript, the
equally marvellous inlaying of the famous reliquary. These are only
the masterpieces, each in its own kind; they are the index of a
civilization which existed before the Norman crossed to Wexford.
How far back native Irish civilization stretches is matter for the
archæologists; but in Kildare Street is a wonderful collection of the
ornaments, weapons, and utensils, from gold fibulæ to flint arrowheads,
which are the documents of that research.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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