A sulky poseur prone to f its of rage
Whimsical, witty and at times scathing... the very frank memoirs of the Abbey’s founder on Yeats and other leading lights of the era
MY grandaunt Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh (Mary Walker) was one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre and the leading lady on its opening night in 1904, playing Kathleen Ni Houlihan.
Her beauty and talent captivated audiences, and she counted the Pearse brothers, Countess Markievicz, Maud Gonne and WB Yeats among her admirers.
Her memoir, The Splendid Years, is Máire’s own account of some of the momentous events that shaped Irish history, including her role as leader of the Cumann na mBan in Jacob’s during the Rising.
The book was written by her nephew Ted Kenny (my father) in the early 1950s. Máire had helped raise him with his widowed mother in Laytown, Co. Meath, and he worshipped her. He withdrew the book in 1955 – three years before Máire died aged 75 – as he was unhappy with the way it had been edited.
For 60 years, his manuscript lay in my mother’s attic. In 2015, I decided to revise the original edition, incorporating his work and extracts from Máire’s personal papers. What emerged was an extraordinary collection of portraits of the State’s founding fathers and mothers.
Máire enjoyed an extensive social network: her family, fixtures in the Dublin theatre scene, was friendly with both the Yeats clan and the Pearse brothers.
Pádraig Pearse was a frequent visitor to Theatre of Ireland rehearsals at the Walker family home, and wrote plays for Máire’s sister (my grandmother) who was known as Gipsy.
Pádraig, ‘one of the most remarkable men of his generation’, was ‘a quiet, rather shy young man, not very impressive in appearance.
‘Some might have said Pearse was vain – a bit of a poseur. He was… finicky about his clothes. He liked to make an impression through his appearance. When he wore his Volunteer uniform, which was perfectly tailored, his slouch hat was always firm and straight on his head. It made him look very intense and serious.’
Pádraig’s sculptor brother Willie attended art school at the same time as Máire.
Fond of wearing cravats, Willie ‘had the same fine profile as Pádraig… but was better looking’, and adored taking to the stage, even if his talents clearly lay elsewhere. ‘What he lacked in ability he made up in enthusiasm,’ noted Máire.
The relationship with WB Yeats family ended in rancour after Máire led a walk-out of the Abbey when WB Yeats moved to make the theatre professional; Máire and other leading players wanted to retain its cooperative roots. Willie threatened to sue her. The bitterness endured for years and he airbrushed her out of the Abbey’s history in his Nobel speech.
‘One could never claim to have known him well,’ Máire recalled. ‘His attitude was haughty. In conversation you got the impression that he looked through and beyond you towards another world. His full-lipped mouth gave him a rather sulky look at times… He was a poseur, but he was never the insipid poet… I have frequently seen him shaken by fits of uncontrollable rage.’
She enjoyed noting WB’s vanity. On the first morning of a voyage to the US for an Abbey tour, Máire recalls him posing on deck. He came up in a ‘white or cream flan- nel suit… and a black tie, floating in the wind... so vain’.
Lennox Robinson then arrived wearing the same suit. Yeats disappeared his room and re-emerged wearing a black outfit. ‘I don’t remember seeing him wear the cream one again,’ she adds.
The Walker sisters also knew very well the young Cork-born revolutionary Michael Collins – though according to my grandmother Gipsy he tried to get to know her a little too well. ‘A woman couldn’t sit in the same room as Mick Collins without him putting his hand up her skirt,’ she said.
Thomas MacDonagh, one of the signatories of the Proclamation, inspired everybody with his irrepressible good nature. ‘His good humour never faltered,’ said Máire. ‘I can never forget how he carried himself in Easter Week. Although his own arrest and execution was inevitable, he kept his courage and good humour until the end.’
Máire gives a touching account of the evening before the Rising, which she spent at the home of Éamonn Ceannt in Dolphin’s Barn.
‘That evening at tea, Éamonn, seemed preoccupied with thoughts of his own. He did not join in the talk that went on during the meal. Afterwards, he asked for a fire in a separate room and withdrew.
‘We were an ordinary little party, passing what seemed a quiet, not very eventful Sunday evening.
‘At about 10 o’clock I rose to go. Éamonn came out of the front room. He looked tired and strained. “Goodbye, Máire,” he said.
‘I never saw him again.’
‘A shy man, not very impressive looking’ Collins would ‘try to put his hand up your skirt’