The literary career of Lady Augusta Gregory (1852–1932) began in 1892 when her husband died. Prior to that time she had been a patron of Irish literature, subsidizing writers such as W. B. Yeats, John Synge, and James Joyce. Wanting to revive the Irish literary heritage, which had been in a torpor since the English conquest, she did so in a number of ways. With Yeats and Edward Martyn Lady Gregory founded the Abbey Theatre, a spur to the Irish national movement. She also collected traditional Celtic tales and folklore in such works as Cuchulain of Muirthemne and Gods and Fighting Men. Perhaps most importantly, with her own dramatic writings she founded modern Irish dialect literature. Productions of her plays drew capacity audiences. Lady Gregory lived to see the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.