Elizabeth Mannion  The Dublin Tenement Plays of the Early Abbey Theatre Although the early decades of the Abbey Theatre featured a repertoire noted for plays set in rural Ireland, Irish cities were also very much present on the nation- al stage. From the original Abbey’s opening in December 1904 to its demolition by fire in the summer of 1951, fifteen percent of the English-language plays to pre- miere there were set in urban centers of the island. These include seven plays set in the city in Belfast, three in Cork, and one in Galway. 1 No fewer than forty-three Abbey plays were set in Dublin. 2 The plays that constitute the theaters’s early newhiberniareview/iriséireannachnua,14:2(samhradh/summer,2010),69–83 1. The Belfast plays are Mixed Marriage (1911) and The Orangeman (1914) by St. John Ervine; Money (1931) by Hugh P. Quinn, Birth of a Giant (1940) by Nora MacAdam; The End House (1944) by Joseph Tomelty; The Old Broom (1946) by George Shiels; and TheDrumsAreOut (1948) by John Coulter. The Cork plays are The Labour Leader (1919) by Daniel Corkery; Moses’ Rock (1938) by Frank O’Connor and Hugh Hunt; and Time’s Pocket (1938) by Frank O’Connor. The lone Galway City play is Mungo’s Mansion (1946) by Walter Macken. 2. The Laying of the Foundations (1902) by Frederick Ryan, originally produced by the Irish National Dramatic Company at the Antient Concert Rooms and never at the Abbey, but part of the Abbey repertoire; The Man Who Missed the Tide and The Suburban Groove (both 1908) by W.F. Casey; The Cross-Roads (1909), the rather lengthy prologue of which is set in Dublin; AnImaginary Conversation (1909) by Norreys Connell (Conal O’Riordan); The Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (1913) by G. Sidney Paternoster; TheCritics,oraNewPlayattheAbbey (1913) by St. John Ervine; The Lord Mayor (1914) by Edward McNulty; The Slough (1914) by A. Patrick Wilson; The Dreamers (1915) by Lennox Robinson; Blight: The Tragedy of Dublin (1917) by Alpha and Omega (Joseph O’Connor and Oliver St. John Gogarty; TheWooing of Julia Elizabeth (1920) by James Stephens; The Revolutionist (1921) by Terence J. MacSwiney; TheYoung Man from Rathmines and A Leprechaun in theTenement (both 1922) by M.M. Brennan; The Shadow of a Gunman and Kathleen Listens In (both 1923) by Sean O’Casey; Apartments (1923) by Fand O’Grady; Never the Time and Place (1924) by Robinson; Juno and the Paycock and Nannie’s Night Out (both 1924) by O’Casey; The Passing (1924) by Kenneth Sarr (Reddin); The Plough and the Stars (1926) by O’Casey; The Drapier Letters (1927) by Arthur R. Power; Before Midnight (1928) by Gerald Brosnan; TheWords Upon theWindow-Pane (1930) by W.B.Yeats; The Critic (1931) by Robinson, a modernization of the Richard Brinsley Sheri- dan play; Scrap (1931) by J.A. O’Brennan; The Big Sweep (1932) by Brennan; The Silver Tassie (1935) by O’Casey; A Deuce O’Jacks (1935) by F.R. Higgins; The Grand House in the City (1936) by Brinsley MacNamara; Blind Man’s Buff (1936) by Denis Johnston, adapted from the play by Ernst Toller; The