...remote community and study the Gaelic language. The idea was to create plays for the new Abbey Theatre that Yeats and Lady Gregory had founded, itself a crucial gesture in the Celtic revival. Synge first travelled to Inis Meáin on May 24 1898. The...in five of the six plays and was hailed - at the Galway premiere last month - as the greatest Irish actress since Siobhan McKenna. "The trip took me a lot closer [to Synge]. The power of the sea, in the context of the plays, was almost overwhelming...By Michael Coveney