In 1662 Katherine Philips went to Dublin to pursue her husband's claim to certain Irish estates; there she completed a translation of Pierre Corneille's "Pompée", produced with great success in 1663 in the Smock Alley Theatre, and printed in the same year both in Dublin and London. Although other women had translated or written dramas, her translation of Pompey broke new ground as the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English and the first English play written by a woman to be performed on the professional stage.