of the Western World" (1907),
to object.

The first appeal of the Irish Players, in April, 1902, was trough the
"Deirdre" of "A.E.," a play out of old legend, national legend, and
"Cathleen ni Houlihan," a symbolic national play of '98. Then followed
Mr. Cousins's two little plays above referred to; "The Laying of the
Foundations," by Mr. Frederick Ryan,--a realistic satire of Dublin life;
and Mr. Yeats's incursion into farce, "A Pot of Broth." The appeal of
the repertoire was widened in 1903 by the inclusion of plays by Lady
Gregory, Mr. Colum, and Synge. "Twenty-five" could give offense to none
in its story of self-sacrificing love, and Mr. Colum's "Broken Soil,"
coming as it did after "In the Shadow of the Glen," would have escaped
hostile criticism in such a situation even had it been much more severe
in its portrayal of peasant life in the Midlands than it was.

From the time of "The Countess Cathleen" (1899) to the time of "In the
Shadow of the Glen" (1903), no one of the plays in the movement had
seriously offended any large section of the public, and the younger
generation of all classes was contributing largely of its intellectual
members to the audience of the National Dramatic Company. The West
Britons, the Dublin Castle set, the Trinity College group, were not much
interested, and, indeed, that portion of the theatrical audience that
fills the stalls in the average theatre the English-speaking world over
has never taken very much interest in the plays of the movement, save to
protest against "The Rising of the Moon" as disloyal to England, and to
approve, misunderstanding its purpose, "The Playboy of the Western
World" as a savage satire of the Irish Irishman. The audience that the
movement has built up is an audience of free intelligences, largely from
the poorer elements of the public, an audience that fills the cheaper
places in the house. "The Pit" of the Abbey Theatre is the envy of all
the theatrical managers of Dublin. It is a pit of people young in years
or young in heart and mind, who are interested in intellectual things, a
group of people largely self-taught, or taught by the Celtic
Renaissance, to appreciate fine things. With these has come that element
of the intellectuals among the Trinity College set that is interested
above all things in Ireland, but this element is not large.

This play and that have attracted, either for purposes of approval or
for purposes of disapproval, groups of peopl