Sir William Henry Gregory PC (Ire) KCMG was an Anglo-Irish writer and politician, who is now less remembered than his wife Augusta, Lady Gregory, the playwright, co-founder and Director of Dublin's Abbey Theatre, literary hostess and folklorist.
"An art critic" Gregory as caricatured by James Tissot in Vanity Fair, December 1871
The Gregory family vault near Coole Park, County Galway in 2016. Originally located on the demesne, it now lies on farmland in Kiltartan between the N18 and M18 (construction site) roads.
Information sign on the Gregory family vault.
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Anglo-Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of stories taken from Irish mythology. Born into a class that identified closely with British rule, she turned against it. Her conversion to cultural nationalism, as evidenced by her writings, was emblematic of many of the political struggles to occur in Ireland during her lifetime.
Gregory pictured on the frontispiece to "Our Irish Theatre: A Chapter of Autobiography" (1913)
Portrait of Lady Gregory, 1903
A poster for the opening run at the Abbey Theatre from 27 December 1904 to 3 January 1905.
Lady Gregory in later life