Irish theatre playwright now stands outside the gallery entrance. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. A sea change in the history of the Irish theatre came with the establishment in Dublin in 1899 of the Irish Literary Theatre by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn. This was followed by the Irish National Theatre Society, later to become the Abbey Theatre. The history of this theatre is well documented, and its importance can be seen from the list of writers whose plays were first performed here in the early days of the 20th century. These included
Padraic Colum did pay his father's fine afterwards. He collected Irish folk songs, and sometimes rewrote them almost in their entirety, including the famous "She Moved Through the Fair". Colum based his poem on one surviving line, while his collaborator, the musicologist Herbert Hughes noted the tune. He was awarded a five-year scholarship by a wealthy American benefactor, Thomas Hughes Kelly. He used it to read, study and write. He did not attend University College Dublin, or any other University as a student. He was awarded a prize by Cumann na nGaedheal for his anti-enlistment play, "The Saxon Shillin"'. Through his plays