Padraic Colum he became involved with the National Theatre Society and became involved in the founding of the Abbey Theatre, writing several of its early productions. His first play, "Broken Soil" (revised as The Fiddler's House) (1903) was performed by W. G. Fay's Irish National Dramatic Company. "The Land" (1905), was one of that theatre's first great public successes. He wrote another important play for the Abbey named "Thomas Muskerry" (1910). His earliest published poems appeared in "The United Irishman", a paper edited by Arthur Griffith. His first book, "Wild Earth" (1907) collected many of these poems and was dedicated to Æ.
W. B. Yeats ancient sagas and Ossianic poetry and the more recent folk song tradition in Irish. One of the most significant of these was Douglas Hyde, later the first President of Ireland, whose "Love Songs of Connacht" was widely admired. In 1899, Yeats, Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and George Moore began the Irish Literary Theatre to present Irish plays. The ideals of the Abbey were derived from the avant-garde French theatre, which sought to express the "ascendancy of the playwright rather than the actor-manager "à l'anglais"." The group's manifesto, which Yeats wrote, declared, "We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted &