Lady Gregory is perhaps primarily responsible for the development of Irish national drama. Together with William Butler Yeats, she founded the Irish Literary Theatre, which later became the Irish National Theatre Society at the Abbey Theatre, in 1899, when she was a middle-aged widow. For thirty-four years, until she died at age eighty, she remained its chief organizer, most ardent supporter, and most prolific playwright, although she had written no plays and had little interest in theater during the years of her marriage.

Born Isabella Augusta Persse, she was the youngest daughter of Dudley and Frances Barry Persse of Roxborough, county Galway, Ireland. She was privately educated. Her marriage in 1880 to Sir William Gregory, former governor of Ceylon and well-known Irish member of parliament, lasted twelve years until his death in 1892. The couple had a son, William Robert.

Lady Gregory's interest in developing a theater in Dublin was initially...