Dublin audiences rioted at the Abbey in 1907, three years after it opened, over J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. That set the tone. The Abbey Theatre (Amharclann na Mainistreach), Ireland’s national theatre on Lower Abbey Street, has spent more than a century staging work designed to argue with its public – and in 1925 it became the first state-subsidised theatre in the English-speaking world, which made the arguing official policy.
Where it came from
The Abbey grew out of the Irish Literary Revival, from three strands: the Irish Literary Theatre, founded in 1899 by W.B. Yeats, Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn; the Fay brothers’ touring company, which played to working-class audiences; and the money of Annie Horniman, the English patron who bankrolled the building. It opened on 27 December 1904 and over the following decades launched Seán O’Casey, Brendan Behan and Brian Friel.
The fire
On the night of 18 July 1951, during a run of O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, fire took the stage, auditorium and roof, along with much of the early archive, costumes and props. The basement Peacock studio survived untouched. So did the Abbey’s gong, pulled from the rubble by a Dublin firefighter and struck again to mark the reopening in 1966 – fifteen years later. The rebuilt theatre, by architect Michael Scott, is a modernist auditorium of 492 seats with strong acoustics and a portrait gallery of the founders. The stained-glass window Sarah Purser made for the original 1904 building still hangs in the foyer; you can see it for free on the way to the box office.
Seeing a show
A performance is the point of the place – take the tour only if the dates won’t cooperate. The programme mixes revivals of the classics with new Irish writing, and standard seats start at €15 for most main-stage shows. Students, seniors, theatre makers and the unwaged get concession prices, and the ‘Theatre For All’ scheme puts €5 tickets into DEIS schools and community groups. A €1.50 booking fee applies online and by phone. If a performance is cancelled or postponed, you can move your tickets, keep the value as a five-year voucher or take a full refund.
Beneath the main house, the Peacock is a black-box studio of just over 100 seats for experimental work, readings and emerging writers. Its schedule runs separately – check the website.
The tour
The hour-long National Theatre Tour (Monday to Saturday, book ahead) goes through the 1960s auditorium, the portrait gallery and the costume department, with the backstage stories thrown in. One caveat: it covers multiple levels, so contact the box office in advance if stairs are a problem. The Abbey Bar inside the complex does pints, wine and light snacks, and fills with cast and crew after the curtain.
Getting there
The Luas Red Line stops at Abbey Street, two minutes away; the Green Line terminates at Marlborough Street, beside the theatre; Connolly Station (DART and commuter rail) is five minutes on foot. Don’t drive if you can help it – street parking is scarce, and the nearest car parks, Eden Quay and the GPO, are paid. Box office: Mon–Fri 12pm–6pm, longer on performance days; +353 1 87 87 222; boxoffice@abbeytheatre.ie.