Samhain was a theatrical

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 periodical published irregularly, with an annual

Annual publication

An annual publication, more often called simply an annual, is a book or a magazine, comic book or comic strip published yearly. For example, a weekly or monthly publication may produce an Annual featuring similar materials to the regular publication....

 in December, in the first decade of the 20th century. The Irish poet

Irish poetry

The history of Irish poetry includes the poetries of two languages, one in Irish and the other in English. The complex interplay between these two traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to...

 W.B. Yeats was a regular and leading contributor of essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

s outlining his artistic principles. Publication began in October 1901, superseding Beltaine, an occasional theatre review and publication of the Irish Literary Theatre

Irish Literary Theatre

The Irish Literary Theatre was a precursor to the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Founded by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Moore and Edward Martyn in 1899, this theatre presented a number of plays by the founders and other writers, including Padraic Colum....

 named for the ancient Irish festival

Irish calendar

The Irish calendar is a pre-Christian Celtic system of timekeeping used during Ireland's Gaelic era and still in popular use today to define the beginning and length of the day, the week, the month, the seasons, quarter days, and festivals...

 Bealtaine

Beltane

Beltane or Beltaine is the anglicised spelling of Old Irish  Beltaine or Beltine , the Gaelic name for either the month of May or the festival that takes place on the first day of May.Bealtaine was historically a Gaelic festival celebrated in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.Bealtaine...

. The National Irish Theatre Society published Samhain. It has been noted that the two periodicals "constitute at once a history and a running critical commentary … of the origin and growth of the dramatic activity in Ireland."

In the first issue of Samhain, Yeats explained the name change as referring to "the old name for the beginning of winter

Samhain

Samhain is a Gaelic harvest festival held on October 31–November 1. It was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and was popularised as the "Celtic New Year" from the late 19th century, following Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer...

, because our plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 this year are in October, and because our Theatre is coming to an end in its present shape." Samhain also published the texts of new plays for a time, but later these were printed in book form as The Abbey Theatre

Abbey Theatre

The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...

 Series. The magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 was published in Dublin by Sealy, Bryers & Walker, and in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 by T. Fisher Unwin

T. Fisher Unwin

T. Fisher Unwin was the London publishing house owned by Thomas Fisher Unwin and founded by him in 1882.The latterly more famous Stanley Unwin started his career by coming to work in his uncle's firm...

.

Sources

• The Collected Letters of W.B. Yeats. Edited by John Kelly and Ronald Schuchard. Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 15, 978, et passim.