Lennox Robinson

Robinson was born in Westgrove, Douglas, County Cork and raised in a Protestant and Unionist family in which he was the youngest of seven children. His father, Andrew Robinson, was a middle-class stockbroker who in 1892 decided to become a clergyman in the Church of Ireland in the small Ballymoney parish, near Ballineen in West Cork. A sickly child, Robinson was educated by private tutor and at Bandon Grammar School. In August 1907, his interest in the theatre began after he went to see an Abbey production of plays by W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory at the Cork Opera House. He published his first poem that same year. His play, The Cross Roads, was performed in the Abbey in 1909 and he became manager of the theatre towards the end of that year. Shortly after joining the Abbey Theatre, he was sent to London for three months to train under George Bernard Shaw as his assistant while he was directing Misalliance.{{Cite web|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/revival-of-the-robinson-connection-1.509176|title=Revival of the Robinson connection|website=The Irish Times|language=en|access-date=2020-01-01}} He resigned in 1914 as a result of a disastrous tour of the United States but returned in 1919. He was appointed to the board of the theatre in 1923 and continued to serve in that capacity until his death, his Abbey career and production involvement can be found in the Abbey archives {{Cite web|url=http://www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/person_detail/13398|title=The Abbey Theatre Archive|website=abbeytheatre.ie|accessdate=20 July 2016}}File:Lennox Robinson - Project Gutenberg eText 19028.jpgAs a playwright, Robinson showed himself as a nationalist with plays like Patriots (1912) and Dreamers (1915). On the other hand, he belonged to a part of Irish society which was not seen as fully Irish. This division between the majority native Irish (Roman Catholics) on one side and the Anglo-Irish (Protestants) on the other can be seen in a play such as The Big House (1926), which depicts the burning of a Protestant manor home by the IRA. Robinson's most popular plays were The Whiteheaded Boy (1916), The Big House and Drama at Inish (1933).{{cite book |last=De Breffny |first=Brian |author-link= |date=1983 |title=Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia |url= |location=London |publisher=Thames and Hudson |page=204|isbn=}}

Other plays included Crabbed Youth and Age (1924), The Far Off Hills (1928), and Church Street (1935). Drama at Inish, which was presented in London and on Broadway as Is Life Worth Living?, was revived as part of the 2011 season at the Shaw Festival (Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada), with Mary Haney as Lizzie Twohig. Robinson's fiction includes Eight Short Stories (1919). In 1931 he published a biography of Bryan Cooper, who had recently died. In 1951, he published Ireland's Abbey Theatre, the first full-length history of the company.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}}

He published an edited edition of Lady Gregory's diaries in 1947.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}} In 1958 he co-edited (with Donagh MacDonagh) The Oxford Book of Irish Verse'.{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}. He was also a director and producer, in 1930 he produced a play by Irish playwright Teresa Deevy called The Reapers {{Cite web|url=http://deevy.nuim.ie/items/show/326|title=The Teresa Deevy Archive (326)|last=Deevy|first=Teresa|website=deevy.nuim.ie|date=18 March 1930|accessdate=21 July 2016}} and in 1931 he was co-director of A Disciple {{Cite web|url=http://deevy.nuim.ie/items/show/464|title=The Teresa Deevy Archive (464)|last=Deevy|first=Teresa|website=deevy.nuim.ie|date=24 August 1931|accessdate=21 July 2016}} along with W. B. Yeats and Walter Starkie.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}}

Robinson married artist Dorothy Travers Smith, the Abbey Theatre stage designer. Their correspondence is in the Library of Trinity College Dublin. Dorothy Travers-Smith's mother was spiritualist Hester Dowden, the daughter of Irish literary scholar Edward Dowden.{{cite book|last1=Murray|first1=Christopher|editor1-last=McGuire|editor1-first=James|editor2-last=Quinn|editor2-first=James|title=Dictionary of Irish Biography|date=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|chapter=Robinson, Lennox}}

He is buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Abbey Players wished to attend the service but, after having been told by the Archbishop that any Catholic setting foot in the Cathedral or graveyard would be committing a mortal sin, only one attended.{{Cite book|title=Seán O'Casey : writer at work: a biography|last=Murray, Christopher.|date=2004|publisher=Gill & Macmillan|isbn=0-7171-2750-8|location=Dublin|page=531|oclc=56926469}}

Awarded annually at the Lennox Robinson Literary Festival, held in Douglas, Cork; first awarded in 2014.{{cite web|url=http://lennoxrobinson.com|title=The Lennox Robinson Literary Festival | Douglas, Cork. 27th Feb – 1st Mar 2015|website=Lennoxrobinson.com|accessdate=21 July 2016}}{{cite web|url=http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/sunday-independent-columnist-to-be-honoured-with-literary-award-in-cork-31011289.html|title='Sunday Independent' columnist to be honoured with literary award in Cork|website=Independent.ie|date=22 February 2015|accessdate=21 July 2016}}

• 2015 winner - Chang Ying-tai (張瀛太)
• 2014 winner - Eoghan Harris

• The Clancy Name (1908)
• The Cross Roads (1909)
• Harvest (1910)
• The Lesson of his Life (1911)
• Patriots (1912)
• The Dreamers (1915)
• The Whiteheaded Boy (1916)
• The Lost Leader (1918)
• The Round Table (1922)
• Crabbed Youth and Age (1922)
• Never the Time and the Place (1924)
• The White Blackbird (1925)
• The Big House (1926)
• The Far-Off Hills (1928)
• Ever the Twain (1929)
• The Reapers (1930)
• A Disciple (1931)
• Drama At Inish (1933)
• Church Street (1934)
• All's Over Then? (1935)
• When Lovely Woman (1936)
• Killycreggs in Twilight (1937)
• Bird's Nest (1938)
• Roly Poly (1940) - adapted from Guy de Maupassant's story Boule de Suif
• Forget-Me-Not (1941)
• The Lucky Finger (1948){{cite news |title='LUCKY FINGER' BOWS; Lennox Robinson's New Play Opens at Bowling Green U. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1948/01/21/archives/lucky-finger-bows-lennox-robinsons-new-play-opens-at-bowling-green.html |access-date=13 April 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=21 January 1948}}

{{Reflist}}

• Igoe, Vivien. A Literary Guide to Dublin. {{ISBN|0-413-69120-9}}
• Selected Plays - Lennox Robinson. Chosen and Introduced by Christopher Murray (Colin Smythe, 1982). {{ISBN|0-86140-087-9}}

• {{FadedPage|id=Robinson, Lennox|name=Lennox Robinson|author=yes}}
• [http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/index.htm Lennox Robinson profile]. Ricorso.net; accessed 21 July 2016.
• [http://archives.lib.siu.edu/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=492 Lennox Robinson Papers, 1892-1954], Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
• [http://www.lennoxrobinson.com/ Lennox Robinson Literary Festival], lennoxrobinson.com
• [https://rose.library.emory.edu/ Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library], Emory University: [http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8ztk1 Lennox Robinson collection, 1940-1958]

{{AcademyAwardBestAdaptedScreenplay 1928-1940}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Lennox}}

Category:1886 births

Category:1958 deaths

Category:20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century Irish poets

Category:20th-century Irish male writers

Category:20th-century Irish short story writers

Category:Abbey Theatre

Category:Burials at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin

Category:Irish Anglicans

Category:Irish male dramatists and playwrights

Category:Irish male poets

Category:Irish male short story writers

Category:People educated at Bandon Grammar School

Category:Writers from County Cork

Category:Irish theatre directors

Category:Irish theatre managers and producers

Category:People from Douglas, Cork