A Disturbing Influence: Maud Gonne in the life of W.B. Yeats
Public Talk for Yeats & the West
Adrian Frazier, NUI Galway
6pm Thurs 14th April
Free entry
This talk is an incendiary look at an incendiary relationship: that of Maud Gonne and W.B. Yeats. Using never before unearthed material it takes us inside a troubled and troubling connection made from politics, personality, poetry, magic, deceit, and love.
A native of St Louis, Missouri, Professor Adrian Frazier (NUI Galway) pursued his fascination with Irish literature and theatre to Ireland’s west, and now lives in Galway. He is the author of Behind the Scenes: Yeats, Horniman, and the Struggle for the Abbey Theatre (Berkeley: University of California 1990), an acclaimed biography of the cultural milieu of Irish novelist and memoirist George Moore, George Moore, 1852-1933 (New Haven: Yale UP 2000), and Hollywood Irish: John Ford, Abbey Actors, and the Irish Revival in Hollywoood (Dublin: Lilliput Press 2011). His most recent book is an illustrated pen portrait of the life and work of sculptor John Behan entitled John Behan: The Bull from Sherriff Street (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2015). His next book is The Adulterous Muse: Maud Gonne, W.B. Yeats and Lucien Millevoye, a joint biography of Yeats, Gonne, and her lover, the French political activist and father of her children, recasting completely our view of the personalities and politics of this tangled and incendiary love triangle.
Adrian Frazier: ‘Galway has a great reputation for creativity globally. Theatre people stay here, actors stay here, it’s easy to put on plays; bookshops are very active in hosting readings.’ PHOTO: JOE O’SHAUGHNESSY.
Yeats & the West Exhibition Tours & Talks
Curators Tours 1pm. Public Talks 6pm.
Free entry
Tours Thursday at 1pm
Tours of the exhibition from the curators take place every Thursday at 1pm. Find out what makes art and poetry so close, and observe the connection of books, and music, drama, and discover never before seen rare books and fine art from the collections of NUI Galway and The Model. Come and get an inside view of the crafts and cultures that made a western revolution.
Talks Thursdays at 6pm
This series of talks on Yeats’s connection to the west and beyond takes us inside the makings of a western cultural revolution. Talks from experts in the field range from exploring the pioneering art and craftwork of the Yeats family to W.B.Yeats’s own life and loves, considering his some of his most controversial and sexy poems; they reveal the extraordinary plays of his brother, the artist Jack B. Yeats, and alongside the Model Gallery’s newly unveiled Broadside collection, showcase his design and print work; and they weigh the wider forces that turned a cultural revolution into a real one.
Speakers include the curators of the exhibition Dr Adrian Paterson and Barry Houlihan (NUI Galway), Professor Adrian Frazier (NUI Galway), Professor Margaret Mills Harper (University of Limerick and outgoing Director of the Yeats International Summer School), Dr Hilary Pyle (former Yeats Curator at National Gallery of Ireland), Dr Ian Walsh (NUI Galway), Dr Mary Harris (NUI Galway).
Thoor Ballylee 
To all, Bob Geldof’s base rendition of W.B. Yeats’ life and influence on modern Irish culture on RTE recently must have escaped the usual editing. Geldof recruited people who never read aloud on TV including a reluctant Van Morrison and many Brit actors.
Paul Dunne
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Hello! I have contributed to the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society from California where I live and was thrilled to get a Christmas card from the society this past December. I visited there in 2014 and do love the whole area. My novel House of Erie will be released this July 2016 at the California State Fair in Sacramento, CA. Part of the novel is set in Galway and Coole Park. At the end matter of the novel, I want to reemphasize that this is fiction and that I support and encourage others to support the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society. Can you please send me the correct contact information to include as part of my wording to my readers soliciting support for the Society? Many thanks,June Gillamwww.junegillam.com PS: I would be happy to send a .pdf copy of the novel to anyone who would like to read it and perhaps review it, as well.
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