Introduction

In December 1881, a young Irish woman arrived in Cairo with her husband. She had already read much about Urabi, ¹ but in Cairo she had a chance to meet the Egyptian nationalist, who was actively revolting against Khedive Tawfiq’s rule and Western, especially British, intervention in the region. Urabi’s story ended sadly with his exile to Ceylon and the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882 after the failure of the Urabi Revolt. Yet the flame he lit seemed to have not only inspired his own countrymen, but to have also left an impression on his foreign visitor. This young woman was Lady Augusta Gregory, most famous for her role as a dramatist and folklorist, and most importantly as a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre with William Butler Yeats. However, what seems most interesting in the present context is that Lady Gregory’s first published work was not about anything Irish (as her intention for the Abbey Theatre was), but an account of her meeting with Urabi and his family. “Arabi and his Household”, a pamphlet intended as a letter to the Times, was Lady Gregory’s attempt to defend Urabi, and in her words “make him appear less of an ogre than he was generally supposed to be” (Gregory, 1883, p. 10). This letter is believed to have even saved him from being hanged. In her Foreword to Wilfred Scawen Blunt’s diaries, Lady Gregory reflects on the poet’s role in defending the Egyptian cause and her first real political involvement; she writes “it seemed to me I had made my education in politics there” (Gregory, 1921, p. x). Conversely, Lady Gregory’s and Yeats’s project of a national theatre as an attempt to play an active role in the politics of their day through Cultural Nationalism seemed to have reached beyond their island to inspire their friends in the southern Mediterranean. Egyptian playwrights and poets have often found inspiration in the tradition established by Yeats and his successors, sometimes even quite overtly. ²