All Cultivated People

Founded in 1907 as a nonsectarian forum for the cultivation of the arts, the United Arts Club has had a checkered history as a cultural vortex of Dublin. Among its early celebrated members were W. B. Yeats, who lectured there on his wife's purported spirit contacts through automatic writing, and George Bernard Shaw, who held forth on economic equality. Other members incuded Yeats's painter-brother Jack, playwright-folklorist Lady Gregory, the writer-mystic ``AE'' (George Russell) and the prolific Patraic Colum, the club's largely absentee president from 1959 to 1972. In its heyday, the club promoted the Irish cultural renaissance, staged plays, offered sanctuary to Republican guerrillas on the run. Chatty, gossipy, as busy as meeting minutes, this affectionate, nicely illustrated history by a member mirrors the shifting currents of Irish literary-artistic life. (Aug.)