Lady Augusta Gregory
15 March: Isabella Augusta Persse is born in Co. Galway. She is either the twelfth of sixteen children, or the ninth of thirteen children, or the yougest of sixteen children.
Later in life she recollected that, because she was a girl, she was "little welcomed," and taught "not to think of herself the equal even of her sisters." Growing up on an unbookish, rural Galway estate and assigned to look after ailing older brothers, she seemed destined to a narrowly bound life.
She was educated at home, and her future career was strongly influenced by the family nurse (i.e. nanny), Mary Sheridan, a Catholic and a native Irish speaker, who introduced the young Augusta to the history and legends of the local area.
Most studies pass over her early years, as if her life did not begin until, at 27, she married.
Her marriage, to her distinguished neighbor Sir William Gregory—then aged 63—brings her status, foreign travel, and a rich social life. He was a former member of Parliament for Galway and the retired Governor of Ceylon. She is now bestowed with the title, "Lady."
An aside about Sir William Gregory:
William was an MP during the Great Famine, and, before Augusta was even born, he sponsored the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1847, which declared that Irish property owners and tenants would henceforth bear the full burden of fiscal responsibility for relief, which was to be administered solely by the Irish poor-law system. To this he added "The Gregory Clause," which required farmers to give up all but 1/4 of an acre of their land if they wanted to qualify for relief.
Because there weren't enough workhouses for the huge numbers entitled to relief, and because the civil servants who administered the relief efforts chose not to begin large-scale outdoor projects, this act had terrible consequences. The workhouse system was overrun, and in the rural areas more people went hungry, starved to death, or died from disease.
This was compounded by the fact that, since they now had to pay new taxes for the relief efforts, Irish landlords began a huge campaign of evictions. Because these new taxes were based on the land that was rented, many landlords eliminated their rented acreage by evicting their tenants and destroying their dwellings. The Gregory Clause helped all of this happen, forcing tenants to give up almost all their land in order to obtain relief. It was common for tenants to starve to death rather than give up their land, because they realized that being entitled to relief and actually receiving it were two different things.
Even more frequently, tenants who surrendered all but the required quarter acre had their dwellings razed in their absence, often while they were at the workhouse applying for relief. Not surprisingly, the evictions that the Gregory Clause facilitated, and the abuses to which it led, set it up as one of the most cruel pieces of British legislation for Ireland. Given the history of the penal laws, this display of inhumanity was truly deserving of contempt.
Her only child, Robert Gregory, is born.
While she and her husband are traveling in Egypt, LAG meets the English anti-imperialist poet, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Thw two conduct a torrid affair for the next 18 months. He inspires some of her first attempts at literature: she writes a series of sonnets about their relationship, and Blunt publishes them anonymously in one of his volumes of poetry, as "A Woman's Sonnets." Blunt also radicalizes her politics, she hears anti-imperialist views and came to share them.
LAG expands upon a letter she wrote to The Times, and publishes her first work under her own name: a pamphlet, Arabi and His Household, supporting Ahmed Orabi Pasha, the leader of the 1879 Egyptian revolt against an 1879 Egyptian nationalist revolt against the Khedivate of Egypt and European domination of the Middle East.
LAG begins work ona series of memoirs, to be published as An Emigrant's Notebook. She gives this up, and An Emigrant's Notebook is first published in the collection Lady Gregory's Early Irish Writings, in 2018.
During this time, LAG publishes several short stories, like "Peeler Astore" and "A Philanthropist," under the nom de plume of Angus Grey. She published a number of political pamphlets, and wrote a bit of poetry (unpublished).
Willam Gregory dies. LAG retreats to Coole Park and edits William's autobiography (published in 1894).
LAG travels to Inisheer, and becomes interested in the folklore of the west of Ireland and the preservation of the Irish language.
LAG supports and organizes lessons in Irish at the Coole school. She begins collecting tales from the areas around Coole Park and Galway (paying special attention to the poeple incarcerated in the Gort Workhouse). These will eventually lead to significant collections, A Book of Saints and Wonders (1906), The Kiltartan History Book (1909), and The Kiltartan Wonder Book (1910).
She also produced several works that offered "Kiltartanese" versions of Irish myths, including Cuchulain of Muirthemne and Gods and Fighting Men. These may be her most enduring works. "Kiltartanese" is LAG's term for English with Gaelic syntax, based on the dialect spoken in and around Coole Park and Gort, the parish of Kiltartan.
LAG meets William Butler Yeats, who is visiting her neighbor, Edward Martyn.
LAG supported Yeats both artistically and materially for many years, allowing him to spend long writing holidays at Coole Park and collaborating with him on some of his early plays. Her contributions to his drama, including her co-writing of the important Nationalist play Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), were initially dismissed or diminished, It is only since the turn of the 21st century that her contributions have been fully acknowledged.
Yeats himself verifies this in a later letter, writing,
"Lady Gregory helped me ... in every play of mine where there is dialect, and sometimes where there is not."
LAG, Yeats, and Martyn found the Irish Literary Theatre.
LAG's Kiltartanese retelling of the story of Cuchulain, Cuchulain of Muirthemne, is published. In his introduction to the book, Yeats writes,
"I think this book is the best that has come out of Ireland in my time."
A Kiltaertanese collection, Gods and Fighting Men, is published.
Her work with Yeats shows LAG that drama is her genre. She writes then produces The Rising of the Moon, which is a huge success. Later successful productions of her work include Spreading the News (1904) and McDonough's Wife (1913). She will eventually write over 40 plays.
LAG and Yeats found the Abbey Theatre. Spreading the News is the first show they mount. LAG will co-direct the Abbey with Yeats until her death in 1932.
The Abbey takes on a third co-director, John Millington Synge. He will remain in this position until his death in 1909.
A collection of folk tales, A Book of Saints and Wonders, is published.
Another collection, The Kiltartan History Book, is published.
A final collection of folk stories, The Kiltartan Wonder Book, is published.
LAG writes her masterpiece, Grania, weaving together a retelling of the Diarmuid and Gráinne legend and details about her affair with Blunt. Yeats hated it, and LAG was reluctant to stage such personal material in Ireland. So the Abbey did not mount a production of it for 102 years. It's premier was in 2024, as part of the annual Dublin Theatre Festival.
LAG's son, Major Robert Gregory, who is serving with the Royal Flying Corps, is killed in Italy. He is buried in Padua. Yeats will write four poems about him, "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory," "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," "Shepherd and Goatherd," and "Reprisals." LAG and Yeats had a falling out over the second poem, and the fourth was never published.
LAG sells Coole Park to the Department of Lands and Agriculture, with the proviso that she can live there until her death for an annual rental of £100.
22 May: After several years of slow decline, LAG succumbs to cancer. During her sickness Yeats was a constant visitor, and always solicitous.