OVERVIEW

• Description

  The Ulster Literary Theatre was formed in 1902 by David Parkhill (who wrote plays under the pen-name Lewis Purcell) and Bulmer Hobson, a Quaker who was active in the Irish Nationalist Movement. They appealed to W. B. Yeats for permission to use his plays, which had been written for Yeats' Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin. Denied permission by Yeats, Hobson defiantly began his own dramatic society. That company was titled the Ulster Branch of the Irish Literary Theatre, and its first production was of Yeats' Cathleen Ni Houlihan, used under permission of Maud Gonne.
  
  The Irish Literary Theatre forbid the Northern-based company's use of the term "Irish Literary Theatre" , and the name was changed to the Ulster Literary Theatre in 1904. From that point on, the company (which shortened its name in 1915 to the Ulster Theatre) developed its own uniquely Northern repertoire and actors.
  
  The company produced over fifty new Ulster plays by such writers as Lynn Doyle, Helen Waddell, and Gerald MacNamara (the pseudonyn of Harry C. Morrow), who was also a prominent actor. While many of its productions were performed in Belfast, the comapany also toured throughout Ireland, and elsewhere. The company's dissolution in 1934 was caused in part by the company being unable to procure an appropriate premises.
  
  In 1940, what remained of the company merged with two amateur groups, the Jewish Institute Dramatic Society and the Northern Irish Players, to form the Ulster Group Theatre.

New Irish Plays Produced By Ulster (Literary)Theatre