Down by the Salley Gardens: Music at Thoor

We welcome The Marine Singers Choir, from Renville, Oranmore, for their magical first performance in Thoor Ballylee.

With soprano Helen Hancock conducting, and pianist Teresa Turner, the repertoire will include works by WB Yeats, marking the centenary year of Yeats receiving the Nobel Prize.

Down By the Salley Gardens

Friday 12 May, 8pm

Tickets €15 (online and on the door see below)

All proceeds to Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society

Down by the Salley Gardens

A musical evening with the Marine Singers and guests at Thoor Ballylee

The Marine Singers, a renowned Galway based choir led by conductor and singer Helen Hancock, perform a much-anticipated concert on Friday May 12th, 8pm at the historic Thoor Ballylee, the former home of renowned poet WB Yeats. This will be the choir’s first-ever performance in this unique and atmospheric venue, which is known for its magical acoustics. The Choir are celebrating 10 years since their formation for the inaugural Galway Choir Factor event in 2013.

The concert promises to be a feast for the senses, featuring classical and contemporary music, performed by the talented Marine Singers, as well as local young musicians Lilian Owens and Sean Hancock from Coole Music. The programme has been carefully curated to showcase the choir’s versatility and range, and to offer a memorable musical experience for all who attend. Expect songs from the sixteenth century to the present day, inspired by the water – including The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre and Die Forelle (The Trout) by Schubert with music by Dowland, Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Ola Gjeilo and a selection of Irish airs.

Helen Hancock, who has been conducting the choir since 2018, is not only a skilled conductor, but also a soprano with a stunning voice. She will also perform during the concert, adding an extra layer.

The Galway Shape Note Singers, another highly regarded choir, will also be joining the Marine Singers for this special occasion. Their collaboration promises to be a highlight of the evening, as they blend their voices together in a celebration of music ,community and the powerful distinctive sound of Sacred Harp singing.

All proceeds go towards the upkeep of Thoor Ballylee.

The choir gratefully acknowledges the support of Opus II Music Store Galway.

Tickets €15 – available on EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.ie/…/down-by-the-salley-gardens…

Limited tickets available on the door on the night. Please contact 0868137216 for more details or via our social media :

https://www.facebook.com/TheMarineSingers

More Information

The Marine Singers has been in existence for 10 years, originally made up of staff from the Marine Institute based at Rinville, Oranmore under their conductor Carmel Dooley. The choir welcomed Oranmore conductor/soprano Helen Hancock as conductor in September 2018. Live rehearsals resumed after the pandemic in September 2022 and performances since include Galway Mental Health Association’s Annual Celebration of Choral Music at St Nicholas Church in October 2022. In december 2022, the choir performed a lunchtime concert at Oranmore Library and sang carols at the Cancer Care West campus at UCHG. The choir looks forward to performing with their director Helen Hancock at Clifden Arts Festival in September 2023.

Helen Hancock is a freelance soprano whose passions include art song, chamber music and baroque music. Helen’s most recent performance was a recital at Farmleigh House, Dublin with pianist Órán Halliagn. Helen was a recipient of an Arts Council Agility Award in 2022 which funded coaching on Baroque and lieder repertoire in Berlin and she performed at the Bloomsday 100 celebrations at the Irish Embassy in Berlin in June 2022. Helen will be in Dingle on May 20th in recital with composer and pianist Criostóir Ó Loingsigh and in the Galway Early Music Festival on May 27th with Mark keane and Vox Orbis . Helen has been on the faculty of Coole Music and Arts for twelve years as a recorder and singing teacher and is the Director of Whistleblowers Recorder Ensemble.

Thoor Ballylee opens for spring season!

Preparations have been continuing all month and all week and now we are delighted to say all is ready for the reopening of Yeats’s tower Thoor Ballylee for the 2023 season on Easter Saturday 8 April!

The highest room in the tower: Theresa and Kathleen take on the “Strangers’ Room”
Adam cleans the windows
Carpentry and tree management in the grounds
The ever-present Lelia Doolan with some of our magnificent volunteers (and dog).

Yeats had written to John Quinn in the summer of 1918 about preparations for what was then Ballylee Castle:

We are surrounded with plans. This morning arrived designs from the drunken man of genius [the architect William] Scott for two beds. The war is improving the work for being unable to import anything we have bought the whole contents of an old mill, great beams & three inch planks & old paving stones; & the local carpenter & masons & blacksmith are to work for us. 

(WB Yeats to John Quinn 18 July 1918)

It is a pleasure to report the continuing work of community craftspeople and volunteers to keep alive Yeats’s dream of a western hub for poetry and artistic endeavour. Thank you to all, young and old, who helped in so many ways over the past few weeks to prepare the tower and grounds for the Easter reopening!

Thoor Ballylee opens Easter Saturday 8 April from 11am, and is open 11am-4pm for the whole Easter weekend.

April opening times will be 11am-4pm from Thursday to Sunday inclusive.

From 1 May the tower will open daily from 10am-5pm throughout the summer. We look forward to welcoming you back, or meeting you there for the first time!

New Year at Thoor Ballylee

Remembering the time of WB Yeats’s death eighty-four years ago, when according to WH Auden he ‘disappeared in the dead of winter’, this year sees WB Yeats’s 158th birthday, and the 100th anniversary of his Nobel Prize for Literature from 1923. At Thoor Ballylee we look back and look forward: we reflect on the past year’s happenings, and anticipate the exciting new season.

The clear out of the exhibitions and fittings in the tower and cottage has long been complete and flood barriers are in place until the spring. Many coats of paint were applied to the downstairs area; rich velvet curtains replaced rotten door & jambs (with the help of Anderson contractors); the audio-visual presentation is newly updated ready for the new year. Through this frosty winter the tower waits in welcome, as for so many years, for pilgrims and visitors from around the world.

2022 Season

Following an enforced two-year closure, we were delighted to back in business to in-person, on-site visitors. The past twelve months for Thoor Ballylee brought lots of hard work and many challenges, but it was our pleasure to welcome back three thousand visitors during the 2022 season, all eager to explore the home of WB Yeats and attend the many organised events.

This year’s season opening began with a warm welcome back as we hosted afternoon tea at Thoor Ballylee. This was followed by an evening concert with Ciaran Cannon & guests, all in aid of the Gort Welcomes Ukraine Fund.

The season also featured:

Two performances of Yeats Joyce and Nora by our local Wild Swan Theatre Company;

an evening with Soprano Helen Hancock;

the annual Poet’s Picnic for WB Yeats, attended by our generous benefactor, Joe Hassett;

…and a special performance of Nora by The Curlew Theatre Company, to mark Bloomsday 100 years of James Joyce’s Ulysses, with musical interlude by Nicola and Karina Cahill.

All week long during Heritage Week as ever the local community took the chance to engage, and the Studio @ Thoor Ballylee was the venue for a book launch on the History of the GAA by Steve Dolan.

For Culture Night Jo Beth Young and guests treated us to an enchanting evening of stories and song with her Shadow Navigation Show.

The long-awaited in-person return of the Yeats Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering brought many Augusta Gregory and Yeats enthusiasts, including many Gregory family members, to Thoor, which hosted day two of the Gathering.

The return of The Songbirds brought our visitor events for 2022 to a close.

But that was not all. Thoor Ballylee was represented at the inaugural Gort Community Fair.

The Society was chosen as a delegate in the EU’s Cultural Heritage in Action Programme and was included on the list of Best Practice Sites in Europe.

Mary Hanley’s sons paid a visit and donated a precious and valuable collection of books to the tower.

And schools and education groups returned to the tower to learn about its history and heritage.

We hosted a civil wedding ceremony for a lovely Texan couple and a several wedding parties chose Thoor and its surroundings for wedding day photos.

And his was a year for documentaries! – starring Miriam Margolyes, Julia Bradbury, and our own Ronnie O’Gorman and Rena McAllen. Highlighting the natural world and cultural impact of Thoor Ballylee, RTE, Channel 4, Bat Conservation Ireland, and a German TV crew came to film in the tower beside the stream at Ballylee.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to our generous benefactors for their continued support. This year with their help we were able to acquire an original Elizabeth Corbett Yeats picture from 1934.

Our thanks go to our army of volunteers and craftworkers and professional contractors helping us at Thoor Ballylee.

Most of all, our appreciation goes to the fantastic group of volunteers (ten of whom joined our team this year) who threw open the doors and shutters, lit the fire and the candles and welcomed in the many guests, pre-booked tours, schoolchildren, and other groups and individual visitors, seven days a week over a period of six months. We thank Pat O Looney, Paul O Donnell, Tonii Kelly, Pauline Kennelly, John Morgan, Aidan Eames, Anne Leahy, Gerry Conneely, Dido, Ruth Lynch Delassus, Gerry Wynne, and more! The call for a Meitheal for the spring clean was responded to with much enthusiasm.

To our reliable car park team Gus and JJ who guaranteed our safety during events, thank you, and for lighting our way to the tower – so spectacularly – thank you JJ Finn.

To our mainstays – the hardworking Nichola Baverstock and Anthony Coppinger – Míle Buíochas.

All requests re maintenance were speedily addressed by local partners: shutters were replaced and painted, presses, windows & doors repaired, a new boiler installed, leaking toilet fixed and a grand new bridge erected in the picnic park.

Thanks go to Eugene Murphy, work on renovating and reinstating the mill wheel continues. The project has caught the interest of former Minister and TD Frank Fahey and other locals, and as a result, a fundraising drive has been set in motion to fund the restoration of the mill wheel.

Let us not forget the tremendous support of Failte Ireland and our many donors and friends.

We have completed another successful and inspiring year at Thoor Ballylee. Whether flood waters arrive or not, we look forward to a wonderful new year in 2023.

Míle Buíochas do cách. Meanwhile if you’d like to contribute however modestly to all the cultural and community work that we do and to the upkeep of this unique building and surrounds please visit our donate page.

Our first visitors of 2023 came all the way from Tennessee! We hope to see you too during this coming season.

Winter greetings from Thoor Ballylee

Following a two-year closure to in-person visitors, Thoor Ballylee opened to all comers in 2022 and all here had a busy and exciting year.  

The Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society was chosen as a delegate in the European Union’s Cultural Heritage in Action program, and was invited to be on the list of Best Practice Sites in Europe. We are also continuing to work nationally and internationally to address the current environmental issues: to that end we are restoring the mill wheel on site, with the hope of generating our own electricity. We hope to implement a biodiversity project, which will help restore the flora and fauna that surrounded Yeats and his family at Thoor Ballylee, and which is mirrored in his writing.

2023 marks an important time for Thoor Ballylee as that year marks the centenary of Yeats winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. To that end, we are planning a series of events to mark the occasion, as we continue our work to preserve and promote Yeats’s legacy. In tandem with the centenary events, we have an equally ambitious programme of performances, tours, talks, and exhibitions for 2023. 

If you’d like to read more about the many cultural events associated with the tower, take time in the new year to visit our website for the latest – https://yeatsthoorballylee.org/  – and why not follow us on Facebook by liking Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society!

As always, we appreciate your continued interest and support in our work to honour the remarkable Yeats family and historic Norman building, and to keep alive the work of WB Yeats through poetry, culture, history, and love of nature. 

If you would like to donate, become a Friend of Thoor Ballylee (or renew your Friend of Thoor Ballylee subscription), we gladly invite you to visit our website donation page.

Many thanks to all our visitors and well-wishers and donors and friends, and wishing you all the best for this season! We close with a photograph of Thoor Ballylee from just last week in all its winter glory.

Songbirds close season at Thoor Ballylee

For our final night of the season at Thoor Ballylee on Saturday 8 October, we are delighted to welcome back The Songbirds. Tickets are selling fast and there is limited space.

The Songbirds

featuring Annie & Marie Burns

and

Kate Purcell

with guest Doug Robinson

sing Thoor Ballylee

7.30pm Saturday 8 October

Tickets EU15

Please call Thoor Ballylee on 091631436 mobile 0858620935 or email yeatsthoorballylee@gmail.com to reserve your ticket.

This is the last event of our first season for a while fully reopened to in-person visitors – come and experience the warmth and love with live music at Yeats’s Tower! Please call Thoor Ballylee on 091631436 mobile 0858620935 or email yeatsthoorballylee@gmail.com to reserve your ticket.

Culture Night 2022 at Thoor Ballylee

Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering

Join us for the 28th annual Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering 2022!

Saturday 24 September 2022

0930-1600 (Coole Time)

and

Sunday 25 September 2022

1000-1400 (Thoor Ballylee Time)

In Coole Park, Lady Gregory provided the space and support needed by the literary giants of the time to shape the nation’s artistic and literary response to events. At Thoor Ballylee WB Yeats wrote some of his finest poems responding to monumental national events like the Irish Civil War. The magic of the Autumn Gathering is to bring people together from all corners of the world – to listen and learn, laugh and share, with academics and artists, local historians and literary figures; to meet descendants of Lady Gregory and Yeats, renew friendships and make new friends – all enjoying and celebrating the prominent role of Lady Gregory in shaping the theatrical, poetic and cultural life which thrives today.

After registration from 9.30, to mark the 90th anniversary of Lady Gregory, Jane Murray Brown, Great-Granddaughter of Lady Gregory, will formally open the Gathering at Coole Park Visitor Centre on Saturday at 10.00 and cut the famous Barm Brack.  Barry Houlihan, Archivist NUIG, will Chair the Gathering. Christopher Griffin, Smithsonian Journeys Lecturer, will speak of Gregory, Yeats, and the Political Violence in the Gort Area 1919-1923.  Dr. Cecily O’Neill, Author and international authority on Drama Education and Theatre, will present Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man: Letters of John B. Yeats from New York. Ella Swift Redding, a self-confessed Lady Gregory ‘SuperNerd’ since her Master’s thesis at Trinity College, and Creatrix of Burly Mermaid Media, will present Revolutions Ahead — Augusta Gregory’s Bold Spin with Victorian Bicycling.  Enjoy the Open Forum with our speakers and Robin Murray Brown, Great-great Grandson of Lady Gregory, and a guided walk in Coole Park Nature Reserve courtesy of the National Parks & Wildlife Service.

On Sunday at 10.00 in Thoor Ballylee, Ronnie O’Gorman, Director Autumn Gathering and Thoor Ballylee, will share The Unexpected Gift of BooksAnna O’Donnell, Chair Thoor Ballylee, will speak about the Mill Wheel Restoration and the Biodiversity Project at Thoor Ballylee, including George’s Garden and WB’s Poetry! Also, a second staging of Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man: Letters of John B. Yeats from New York will be held in the tower.

Saturday Cost: €60 per person, tea/coffee/barm brack break included.  Lunch can be purchased in Coole Park Tearooms.  Candlelight Dinner and Entertainment in Coole on Saturday evening at 1900 – €75 per person. Please advise your guest numbers asap.

Sunday Cost: €20 per person, tea/coffee break and lunch included; pay at door of Thoor Ballylee.

For full details please go to https://autumngathering.com/programme/

For booking, please go to: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/lady-gregory-yeats-autumn-gathering-2022-tickets-414867859937

To advance book the Thoor Ballylee Sunday leg go to: Thoor Ballylee Gregory gathering eventbrite

You can also contact the event organiser on:

Marion Cox email: monaleen@msn.com  Tel: 086-8053917. https://autumngathering.com

We look forward to welcoming you!

Heritage Week at Thoor Ballylee

Hurling heritage

On Saturday August 20th at 3pm, a free lecture at Yeats’ Tower, Thoor Ballylee, explores the hurling heritage of Galway. It highlights the dominance of South Galway in the early history of the GAA, and the season of 1910 which saw Ardrahan win the biggest ever county championship. Limited edition charity booklets on Ardrahan’s triumph in the Big Season of 1910 [€10 each] will be available with all proceeds going to Kiltartan Museum and Thoor Ballylee.

Wild Swans Theatre

On Sunday 21 August at 6pm Heritage week is concluded by a play performed by The Wild Swan Theatre company. Written by Joe Hassett and directed by Marion Cahill-Collins, this explores the intertwined lives of Yeats and Joyce and Nora Barnacle. Admission to the play which starts at 6pm inside the tower is €10 with tickets available on the door.

Portrait of a Lady

Continuing our summer programme of cultural events, don’t miss your chance to attend our next concert.

Portrait of a Lady

at Thoor Ballylee

Friday 24 June at 8:00 PM

The concert features Helen Hancock (Soprano), Catriona McElhinney Grimes (Piano), and our guest Kitty Sabry (Violin).

Join us for an evening of eclectic music – from French song and German lieder to Irish song and arrangements of Irish music for solo piano.

The programme explores the voice of women and includes a song cycle by Clara Schumann, songs by Lili Boulanger and Catriona’s own arrangements of Irish music for piano solo. Irish song settings and songs by Fauré, Schubert and Mozart will also feature.

Come find us in the historic venue of Thoor Ballylee, Gort, Co. Galway where Yeats himself lived and where many powerful female voices were heard!

Click to book your tickets at eventbrite. Tickets available on the door, but going fast!

Yeats’s Birthday and Bloomsday Play

Today, 13 June, sees the 157th birthday of WB Yeats.

This Thursday 16 June is Bloomsday, a special event this year as 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

James Joyce, Ulysses (Paris: Shakespeare & Co., 1922)

For Bloomsday this Thursday Thoor Ballylee celebrates with a special performance of Noramollyannalivialucia: The Muse and Mister Joyce” written by Irish poet Eamon Grennan.

Curlew Theatre Company presents

Noramollyannalivialucia:

The Muse and Mister Joyce

at Yeats’s Tower, Thoor Ballylee

8pm Thursday June 2022

Admission €15. Tickets available on the door: or for bookings phone 091 631436 / 0858620935

This is a solo play for voices based on Nora Barnacle’s life, in which Joyce’s Galway wife Nora is visited by a group of people (the audience) keen for stories about Joyce, and receive some home truths. Extracts from Joyce’s works interweave with Nora’s memories as she composes a portrait of the artist’s wife as an older woman. The play is performed by Curlew Theatre Company with musical interludes by Nicola and Karina Cahill on harp and flute.

Yeats had the idea that Thoor Ballylee might work as an artistic a hub for Irish artists like James Joyce.

So what did Yeats and Joyce have in common?

Only too much, suggests Joe Hassett in his play Wandering Stars, premiered yesterday at Thoor Ballylee. What they had in common artistically is explored further in an essay by Adrian Paterson published this week by Modernist Studies Ireland.

To find out more, come along to Thoor Ballylee this Bloomsday, or any day this summer!

Opening times for Thoor Ballylee

June 2022

Daily 10 am to 5 pm

Players for Wandering Stars joined by the author Joe Hassett

Plays and Poets Picnic

2022 is a literary summer season! In the run up to WB Yeats’s 157th birthday on 13 June, and Bloomsday on 16 June celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, we have special cultural events taking place at Thoor Ballylee.

Poets Picnic

3pm Sunday 12 June 2022

+

4pm Wandering Stars

performed by the Wild Swan Theatre Company

Poets Picnic

Our Poets Picnic is free to all young and old! It is an annual gathering of poetry lovers and all folk interested in poetry and culture, in honour of WB Yeats’s birthday. Do come along for our magnificent outdoor picnic spread, with readings of Yeats’s poems, thoughts about his life and legacy, and reflections and poems by other artistic figures.

Wandering Stars

This year the Poets Picnic is followed by a play performed by The Wild Swan Theatre company. Written by Joe Hassett and directed by Marion Cahill-Collins, this explores the intertwined lives of Yeats and Joyce and Nora Barnacle. Admission to the play which starts at 4pm inside the tower is €10 with tickets available on the door.

Cast: Claire O Donnell as Nora, Justin McDermott as Joyce, Gerry Conneely as Yeats.