Augusta Gregory was a key figure in Irish cultural nationalism and the development of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland.
She was a member of the Anglo Irish upper class but she turned against her background and turned to supporting the Nationalist movement of the early 20th century, which led to independence.
She was born Isabella Augusta Persse in in 1852 in Galway and was brought up there in an aristocratic family. Her childhood nanny was an Irish Catholic who taught her about Irish history and folklore. She had a good home education… and was an intelligent girl. She married comparatively late, at the age of 28 . Her husband Sir William Gregory was much older than her, but he was a well educated man who had been Governor of Ceylon, and had also been a member of Parliament. He was interested in writing also and they had interests in common. He had a house in London and the couple enjoyed living there and playing host to many literary figures. They also had an estate in Ireland, Coole Park in Galway and they travelled abroad frequently.
They had one son, Robert who later became a pilot in World War I.
Augusta was fond of her husband and was no doubt glad to have found a man who shared her intellectual interests. However he was much older than her and during her travels abroad she had an affair with the poet Wilfred Blunt….She wrote love poems to him, and began to take an interest in nationalist movements. She kept a journal and began to hone her writing skills. Wilfred Blunt was a supporter of Arab nationalism..
However Augusta was still like most of her class against the idea of Irish independence and wrote a pamphlet against Home Rule… in the early 1880s.
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