of which he was one of the advisers. In June, 1905, he went
through the Congested Districts of Connemara, with Mr. Jack B.
Yeats. After this expedition, which lasted a month, he was
generally in or near Dublin, in Kingstown and elsewhere, though he
made summer excursions to Dingle, the Blasket Islands, Kerry, etc.
About once a year, when the Abbey Theatre Company was touring in
England, he came with it if his health allowed, to watch the
performances in London, Manchester or Edinburgh, wherever they
might be. His life was always mainly within himself; the record of
these years is very meagre, all that can be said of them is that
he passed them mostly in Ireland, writing and re-writing, in
failing health and with increasing purpose. His general health was
never robust, and for at least the last six years of his life his
throat troubled him. He used to speak of the trouble as "his
glands;" I cannot learn its exact nature; but I have been told
that it was "cancer" or "some form of cancer," which caused him
"not very great pain," but which "would have been excessively
painful had he lived a little longer." Doctors may be able to
conclude from these vague statements what it was. He was operated
upon in May, 1908, but the growth could not be removed, and from
that time on he was under sentence of death. He passed his last
few months of life trying to finish his play of _Deirdre_ and
writing some of his few poems. He died in a private nursing home
in Dublin on the 24th. March, 1909. and was buried two days later
in a family vault in the Protestant graveyard of Mount Jerome,
Harold's Cross, Dublin. He had been betrothed, but not married.

* * * * *

One thing more needs to be said. People have stated that Synge's