The early literary revival had two geographic centres, in Dublin and in London, and
William Butler Yeats travelled between the two, writing and organising. In 1888 he published
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, a compilation of pieces by various authors of the 18th and 19th centuries. He had been assisted by
Douglas Hyde, whose
Beside the Fire, a collection of folklore in Irish, was published in 1890. In London in 1892, along with
T. W. Rolleston,
Charles Gavan Duffy and
John Todhunter he set up the
Irish Literary Society. Back in Dublin he founded the
National Literary Society in the same year, with
Douglas Hyde as first President. Meanwhile, the more radical
Arthur Griffith and
William Rooney were active in the Irish Fireside Club and went on to found the Leinster Literary Society. by his father,
John Butler Yeats In 1893 Yeats published
The Celtic Twilight, a collection of lore and reminiscences from the West of Ireland. The book closed with the poem "Into the Twilight". It was this book and poem that gave the revival its nickname. In this year Hyde,
Eugene O'Growney and
Eoin MacNeill founded the
Gaelic League, with Hyde becoming its first President. It was set up to encourage the preservation of Irish culture, its music, dances and language. Also in that year appeared Hyde's
The Love Songs of Connacht, which inspired Yeats,
John Millington Synge and
Lady Gregory.
Thomas A. Finlay founded the
New Ireland Review, a literary magazine, in 1894, which he edited until 1911, when it was replaced by
Studies. Many of the leading literary lights of the time contributed to it. In 1897 Hyde became editor, with T. W. Rolleston and Charles Gavan Duffy, of the
New Irish Library, a series of books on Irish history and literature issued by the London publisher, Fisher Unwin. Two years later Hyde published his
Literary history of Ireland. Yeats, Lady Gregory and
Edward Martyn published a
Manifesto for Irish Literary Theatre in 1897, in which they proclaimed their intention of establishing a national theatre for Ireland. The
Irish Literary Theatre (ILT) was founded by Yeats, Lady Gregory and Martyn in 1899, with assistance from
George Moore. It proposed to give performances in Dublin of Irish plays by Irish authors. In February 1901, at the
Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, the ILT performed “The Last Feast of the Fianna”, a one-act depiction of an episode in the
tale of Oisin. It was the work of the Gaelic League activist,
Alice Milligan. Lady Gregory found the lack of action and long soliloquies "intolerable" and the overall effect "tawdry". But it was a first attempt "to dramatize Celtic Legend for an Irish audience". The Fay brothers formed
W. G. Fay's Irish National Dramatic Company, focused on the development of Irish acting talent. The company produced works by
Seumas O'Cuisin,
Fred Ryan and Yeats. Around the turn of the century
Patrick S. Dinneen published editions of
Geoffrey Keating's
Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, poems by
Aogán Ó Rathaille and
Piaras Feiritéar, and other works for the
Irish Texts Society and the Gaelic League. He then went on to write the first novel in Irish, while continuing to work on his great Irish-English dictionary. On Easter Sunday 1900 Yeats' friend and muse,
Maud Gonne, founded
Inghinidhe na hÉireann (English: Daughters of Ireland), a revolutionary women's society which included writers
Alice Furlong, Annie Egan,
Ethna Carbery and Sinéad O'Flanagan (later wife of
Éamon de Valera), and the actors Máire Quinn and
Sara Allgood. The Irish-language newspaper
Banba was founded in 1901 with
Tadhg Ó Donnchadha as editor. The following year he also became editor of the
Gaelic Journal. In 1903 Yeats, Lady Gregory,
George Russell ("AE"), Edward Martyn, and Synge founded the Irish National Theatre Society with funding from
Annie Horniman; Fred Ryan was secretary. The
Abbey Theatre was opened by this society in Abbey Street on 27 December 1904.
Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh played the name part in
Cathleen Ni Houlihan. Yeats' brother
Jack painted portraits of all the leading figures in the society for the foyer, while
Sarah Purser designed stained glass for the same space. The new Abbey Theatre found great popular success. It staged many plays by eminent or soon-to-be eminent authors, including Yeats, Lady Gregory, Moore, Martyn,
Padraic Colum,
George Bernard Shaw,
Oliver St John Gogarty,
F. R. Higgins,
Thomas MacDonagh,
Lord Dunsany,
T. C. Murray,
James Cousins and
Lennox Robinson. In 1904
John Eglinton started the journal
Dana, to which Fred Ryan and
Oliver St John Gogarty contributed. In 1906 the publishing house of Maunsel and Company was founded by
Stephen Gwynn,
Joseph Maunsel Hone and
George Roberts to publish Irish writers. Its first publication was
Rush-light by
Joseph Campbell. Lady Gregory started publishing her collection of
Kiltartan stories, including
A Book of Saints and Wonders (1906) and
The Kiltartan History Book (1909). The
Irish Review was founded in 1910 by Professor David Houston of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, with his friends poet
Thomas MacDonagh, lecturer in English in University College Dublin, poet and writer
James Stephens, with David Houston, Thomas MacDonagh,
Padraic Colum and
Mary Colum and
Joseph Mary Plunkett. The magazine was edited by Thomas MacDonagh for its first issues, then Padraic Colum, then, changing its character utterly from a literary and sociological magazine, Joseph Plunkett edited its final issues as literary Ireland became involved with the
Irish Volunteers and plans for the
Easter Rising. Plunkett published a collection of poems,
The Circle and The Sword, the same year. ==Fellow travellers==