Lady Gregory

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory, née Isabella Augusta Persse, most commonly known as Lady Gregory, was an Irish writer, a playwright, and a translator. Her commitment to works in the Irish language was vital to the Irish literary revival of the late 1800s. With William Butler Yeats, she cofounded the Irish Literary Theatre in 1899; this later became the Abbey Theatre, famous for its production of John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, whose portrayal of Irish peasantry incited a riot. 

Lady Gregory arranged various versions of Irish sagas into a hybrid English and Irish dialect that she labeled “Kiltartan,” publishing the texts as Cuchulain of Muirthemne (1902) and Gods and Fighting Men (1904). She also translated poems and legends, including traditional Irish works, in The Kiltartan Poetry Book (1919). Lady Gregory also wrote or translated nearly 40 plays.