Madam, - I enjoyed Sara Keating's article on The Big House, by Lennox Robinson, which is currently playing at the Abbey Theatre (Arts, August 1st).
However, I must take issue with her statement that, although the Abbey Theatre was "founded by a pair of Anglo-Irish Protestants . . . when that [independent Irish] State finally came into being in 1921, it was defined by values which excluded the very people who had driven the cultural revolution that had enabled Ireland's political freedom".
One of the pair, W.B. Yeats, was appointed to the Free State Senate in 1922 and the other, Lady Gregory, stood for the Senate in 1925, but Yeats's mishandling of the details prevented her from getting a seat. The Free State Senate was composed of 60 members, 30 appointed by W.T. Cosgrave and 30 elected by the Dáil. The appointed members had a preponderance of ex-Unionists, former landlords or businessmen mainly of the Protestant religion.
Although far from perfect, the new Senate did a lot of useful work, particularly in improving legislation. Yeats was an active member; and when he won the Nobel Prize in 1923 he wrote: "I consider that this honour has come to me less as an individual than as a representative of Irish literature. It is part of Europe's welcome to the Free State." He left the Senate in 1928.
In May 1936 that Senate was abolished by Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil government. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK O'BYRNE, Shandon Crescent, Phibsborough, Dublin 7.