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!

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!