Abbey Theatre works by Seumas O'Cuisin, Fred Ryan and Yeats. The third base was the financial support and experience of Annie Horniman, a middle-class Englishwoman with previous experience of theatre production, having been involved in the presentation of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" in London in 1894. An acquaintance of Yeats from London circles, including the Order of the Golden Dawn, she came to Dublin in 1903 to act as Yeats' unpaid secretary and to make costumes for a production of his play "The King's Threshold". Her money helped found the Abbey Theatre and, according to the critic Adrian Frazier,
Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany and London, and travelled between their homes in Meath, London and Kent, other than during World Wars I and II, and the Irish War of Independence. Dunsany himself circulated with many other literary figures of the time. To many of these in Ireland he was first introduced by his uncle, the co-operative pioneer Sir Horace Plunkett, who also helped to manage his estate and investments for a time. He was friendly with, for example, George William Russell, Oliver St. John Gogarty and, for a time, W. B. Yeats. He also socialised at times with George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and