Esmé Stuart Lennox Robinson (4 October 1886 – 15 October 1958) was an Irish

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

producer and director who was involved with the

Abbey Theatre The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the p ...

Life

Robinson was born in Westgrove,

Douglas, County Cork Douglas () is a suburb, with a village core, in Cork city, Ireland. Douglas is also the name of the townland, Roman Catholic parish, Church of Ireland parish and civil parish in which it is contained. Originally a separate village, the growt ...

and raised in a

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

and Unionist family in which he was the youngest of seven children. His father, Andrew Robinson, was a middle-class stockbroker who in 1892 decided to become a clergyman in the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the secon ...

in the small Ballymoney parish, near Ballineen in West Cork. A sickly child, Robinson was educated by private tutor and at

Bandon Grammar School Bandon Grammar School () is a Church of Ireland secondary school situated in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland. Established in 1642, it is one of the oldest schools in Ireland. General Bandon Grammar School is a co-educational, boarding and day ...

. In August 1907, his interest in the theatre began after he went to see an Abbey production of plays by W. B. Yeats and

Lady Gregory Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (''née'' Persse; 15 March 1852 – 22 May 1932) was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, ...

at the

Cork Opera House Cork Opera House is a theatre and opera house in Cork in Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the Nort ...

. He published his first poem that same year. His play, ''The Cross Roads'', was performed in the Abbey in 1909 and he became manager of the theatre towards the end of that year. Shortly after joining the Abbey Theatre, he was sent to London for three months to train under

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

as his assistant while he was directing ''

Misalliance ''Misalliance'' is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw. The play takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead, Surrey in Edwardian era England. It is a continuation ...

''. He resigned in 1914 as a result of a disastrous tour of the United States but returned in 1919. He was appointed to the board of the theatre in 1923 and continued to serve in that capacity until his death, his Abbey career and production involvement can be found in the Abbey archives Lennox Robinson - Project Gutenberg eText 19028

Lennox Robinson - Project Gutenberg eText 19028

As a playwright, Robinson showed himself as a nationalist with plays like ''Patriots'' (1912) and ''Dreamers'' (1915). On the other hand, he belonged to a part of Irish society which was not seen as fully Irish. This division between the majority native Irish (Roman Catholics) on one side and the Anglo-Irish (Protestants) on the other can be seen in a play such as ''The Big House'' (1926), which depicts the burning of a Protestant manor home by the IRA. Robinson's most popular play was ''The Whiteheaded Boy'' (1916). Other plays included ''Crabbed Youth and Age'' (1924), ''The Far Off Hills'' (1928), '' Drama at Inish'' (1933), and ''Church Street'' (1935). ''Drama at Inish'', which was presented in London and on Broadway as ''Is Life Worth Living?'', was revived as part of the 2011 season at the Shaw Festival (Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada), with Mary Haney as Lizzie Twohig. Robinson's fiction includes ''Eight Short Stories'' (1919). In 1931 he published a biography of Bryan Cooper, who had recently died. In 1951, he published ''Ireland's Abbey Theatre'', the first full-length history of the company. He published an edited edition of Lady Gregory's diaries in 1947. In 1958 he co-edited (with Donagh MacDonagh) ''The Oxford Book of Irish Verse'..'' He was also a director and producer, in 1930 he produced a play by Irish playwright

Teresa Deevy Teresa Deevy (21 January 1894 – 19 January 1963) was an Irish dramatist and writer, who was deaf from the age of 19. Best known for her works for theatre, she was also a short story writer, and writer for radio. Early life Teresa Deevy w ...

called ''The Reapers'' and in 1931 he was co-director of ''A Disciple'' along with W. B. Yeats and Walter Starkie.

Personal life

Robinson married artist Dorothy Travers Smith, the Abbey Theatre stage designer. Their correspondence is in the Library of Trinity College Dublin. Dorothy Travers-Smith's mother was spiritualist Hester Dowden, the daughter of Irish literary scholar

Edward Dowden Edward Dowden (3 May 18434 April 1913) was an Irish critic, professor, and poet. Biography He was the son of John Wheeler Dowden, a merchant and landowner, and was born at Cork, three years after his brother John, who became Bishop of Edinbur ...

. He is buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Abbey Players wished to attend the service but having been told by the Archbishop that any Catholic setting foot in the Cathedral or graveyard would be committing a mortal sin, only one attended.

Lennox Robinson Literary Award

Awarded annually at the Lennox Robinson Literary Festival, held in Douglas, Cork; first awarded in 2014. * 2015 winner - Chang Ying-tai (張瀛太) * 2014 winner -

Eoghan Harris Eoghan Harris (born 13 March 1943) is an Irish journalist, columnist, director, and former politician. He has held posts in various and diverse political parties. He was a leading theoretician in the Marxist-Leninist Workers' Party of Ireland, p ...

Dramatic Works

* The Clancy Name (1908) *The Cross Roads (1909) *Harvest (1910) *The Lesson of his Life (1911) *Patriots (1912) *The Dreamers (1915) *The Whiteheaded Boy (1916) *The Lost Leader (1918) *The Round Table (1922) *Crabbed Youth and Age (1922) *Never the Time and the Place (1924) *The White Blackbird (1925) *The Big House (1926) *The Far-Off Hills (1928) *Ever the Twain (1929) *The Reapers (1930) * A Disciple (1931) * Drama At Inish (1933) *Church Street (1934) *All's Over Then? (1935) *When Lovely Woman (1936) *Killycreggs in Twilight (1937) *Bird's Nest (1938) *Roly Poly (1940) - adapted from

Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...

's story Boule de Suif *Forget-Me-Not (1941) *The Lucky Finger (1948)

References

Sources

*Igoe, Vivien. A Literary Guide to Dublin. *''Selected Plays - Lennox Robinson.'' Chosen and Introduced by Christopher Murray (Colin Smythe, 1982).

External links

*
Lennox Robinson profile
Ricorso.net; accessed 21 July 2016.
Lennox Robinson Papers, 1892-1954
Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
Lennox Robinson Literary Festival
lennoxrobinson.com
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Lennox Robinson collection, 1940-1958
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Lennox 1886 births 1958 deaths 20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Irish poets 20th-century Irish male writers 20th-century Irish short story writers Abbey Theatre Burials at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Irish Anglicans Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish male poets Irish male short story writers People educated at Bandon Grammar School People from County Cork Irish theatre directors Irish theatre managers and producers