Edward Martyn is one of the most refreshing figures of the literary and theatrical revival at the turn of the last century. He was a Catholic, unusual then among landowners, and became a nationalist when he read Lecky's History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century. Already known as a dramatist and a supporter of the Irish Literary Theatre when he appeared among those demonstrating against the visit of the British sovereign to Ireland, the members of his club, The Kildare Street, evicted him from their premises. He took legal action against them and the law upheld his position.
He was, writes Padraic Colum in his life of Arthur Griffith, stout, ruddy-faced, given to chuckling and spoke with a good Galway accent. He enjoyed, we are told, dining alone in the bastion of ultraloyalism. He supported the Feis Ceoil, and was an active leader in the Gaelic League. But his main interests were in music and the theatre.
He backed financially the first productions of the Irish Literary Theatre. These included Yeats's Countess Cathleen and Martyn's own Heather Field and Maeve. He gave a lot of money to found the Palestrina choir in the Pro-Cathedral of Dublin.
The current issue of Ireland of the Welcomes has a fine article, "The Enchantment of South Galway' including, of course, Lady Gregory, Coole and other pictures of wild, open country. Its writer, Madeline Humphreys, is currently working on a life of Martyn. She visited Tulira, the Norman castle which was his home. In this castle he could be heard playing his organ in the great hall, under a stained glass window designed by Aubrey Beardsley. He disdained the comforts of the main house, and it was in the castle that he spent his days "dreaming his dream", as Madeleine Humphreys tells us. Fine pictures of the woods of Coole Park which Lady Gregory lovingly tended. John Millington Synge, we are told used to run through these woods for hours. The writer confesses to being "intoxicated by the smell of bark and moss and fern. . . . . weirdly shaped trees, gnarled by generations of fungi growing on their trunks, line the pathways."
The woods are open from April to September but times vary during the season. Very tempting. Altogether, this corner of Ireland, as described here, would bring people from afar.