By Alan Riach Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University The Easter Rising of 1916 had been preceded by the foundation of the Abbey Theatre, founded by Irish poet WB Yeats AT moments of revolutionary upheaval, writers are quick to grasp how important live dramatic performance can be. Their work frequently precedes and imagines what might follow. In Ireland, during the Easter Rising of 1916, Irish patriots occupied the Dublin Post Office, the most significant symbolic site for the exchange of information. This had been preceded by the foundation of the Abbey Theatre in 1903, itself a development of the Irish Literary Theatre, founded by WB Yeats, Lady Gregory and others in 1899.