George Bernard Shaw provoke, although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907. Shaw later wrote that William Butler Yeats, who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland." Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and Lady Gregory tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after J. M. Synge's death in
Mary Colum visitor amongst the salons, readings and debates there. After graduation in 1909 she taught with Louise Gavan Duffy at St Ita's - a companion school to Patrick Pearse's St. Enda's School. She was active with Thomas MacDonagh and others in national and cultural causes. She co-founded "The Irish Review" (1911–14) with David Houston, Thomas MacDonagh et al. and she and her husband Padraic edited the magazine for some months of its four-year career. She was encouraged by Yeats to specialise in French literary criticism and to translate Paul Claudel. She married Padraic Colum in July 1912, and they moved to