Happy New Year from all at Yeats’s tower! 2024 was a year in which Thoor Ballylee suffered loss, but in artistic terms more than ever gave back to the community.
It was a year of art music and poetry and history – from Joe Queally on the Fanore School case to a creative writing day with poet Terry McDonagh, taking inspiration (like Yeats did!) from Antoine Ó Raifteiri and the landscapes of Galway. Throughout, local musicians and performers joined world-renowned artists in story and song, including our own successful programme of artists in residence. As part of the Kinvara plein air initiative, Tony Robinson brought along fellow artists to paint at Thoor Ballylee.
Indeed, the visual arts were especially well represented this year. An exhibition of colourful banners created by The Dún Emer Eastside Collective under the direction of the artist Áine Phillips opened at Thoor Ballylee from May into June. Commissioned by Galway City Council, Galway Public Libraries, and Galway City Museum, the design and format of the Reflections Banners were influenced by the textile works by Lily and Elizabeth Yeats in their association with the Dún Emer Guild and Cuala press. The imagery and motifs are inspired by their innovative Celtic Revivalist work and by the visual art of women creators 100 years ago such as Grace Plunkett, Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett.
Every year on 13 June (Yeats’s birthday) we gather for our annual Poets Picnic, remembering old friends and making new ones over food and verse aplenty. Visitors came to view our permanent exhibitions about Yeats’s life and work, and our contemporary textile banners, inspired by Yeats sisters’ Dun Emer Guild – and this year even enjoyed an exclusive painting demonstration by Sligo artist, Aileen O Donnell.
Our new artist in residence programme in the Studio at Thoor Ballylee in July welcomed Kara Griffin, a children’s book author from Prince Edward Island, Canada. Her writing celebrates the beauty and wonder of the natural world. Books include The Sea That Sings To Me, and Flitt’s Call (about a species-at-risk). For Kara, stories for children often capture the wonder and magic of the world. Through her writing, she hopes to “inspire children to fall in love with and protect the natural world.” While “spending precious time in a place that celebrates the power of words to shape and heal the world, and bring the spiritual and mystical alive.” Kara completed the draft of a short story that awaits publication.
Our August Heritage Week Hidden Ireland exhibition by Ekaterina Ivanova was extended by popular demand into September. This exhibition of photography and prose explored the many castles of county Galway (just some of Ireland’s 30,000 such monuments), offering maps, routes, exact coordinates, photos, and intriguing narratives to inform and inspire visitors to explore these intriguing sites.
Throughout the rest of September our artist in residence Susan Mannion stayed onsite hosting meet the artist sessions and showcasing her new exhibition Equinox – Light and Dark Held in Balance. Susan Mannion has been a wood engraver for thirteen years, and this exhibition represents her ninth solo exhibition. The title was taken from the time of year that the exhibition bridges; that is, the Autumnal Equinox on Sunday 22 September, when dark and light are equally balanced. Visitors, including Imelda May, were delighted at the work on show: further work inspired by the residence is being developed and will become available in due course, we hope at the studio or tower itself.
On this hinge of the year, on that same day for Culture Night weekend ConTempo Quartet in collaboration with the young musicians of Coole Music performed a concert featuring local poet and member of Ploughed Field Collective Justin McDermott.
Hot on the heels of Culture Night, the Lady Gregory Yeats Autumn Gathering returned triumphantly this autumn with probably its best ever programme, featuring events, talks, artistic appreciations, and performance from friends old and new at Duras House, Coole Park, and Thoor Ballylee.
Highlights included Garry Hynes interviewed by Melissa Sihra on Druid‘s Lady Gregory productions, Lelia Doolan starring (at short notice!) as Augusta Gregory in Cecily O’Neill’s single-hander play No peace for my mind, no rest for my pen adapting Gregory’s last reflections on Coole, and Dr Adrian Paterson on the decisive local connections between Antoine Ó Raifteiri, Douglas Hyde, Lady Gregory, and Yeats. Thoor Ballylee itself hosted an illuminating conversation with Abbey Theatre Director Caitríona McLaughlin discussing the new production of Grania by Lady Gregory, and a special screeing introduced by the inimitable Imelda May of her film about Lilly and Lolly Yeats: The Forgotten Sisters. The guests were also treated to an impromptu performance when, backed by local musicians, singer-songwriters Imelda May and Declan O’Rourke stepped up to the microphone at a candlelit dinner at Coole Park.
A colourful stained glass lantern that was used by W.B. Yeats “to ascend and descend the Tower’s winding stair to write and reflect” was returned to the former home of the poet laureate during the Gathering. The lantern, which has been in storage in Provincetown, Massachusetts, is the possession of Jan Kelly, whose family lived locally and who had land adjacent to Thoor Ballylee. Jan’s father, John Kelly, knew Yeats and was often summoned to take handwritten messages to Lady Gregory at Coole Park, on his bicycle. Members of the Kelly family worked for the Yeatses and thanks to one of them the plaque, bearing the inscription “I the poet William Yeats” now adorns the side wall of the tower having been discovered and erected in 1948. Local historian and author, Sr Mary de Lourdes Fahy, who knew the Kelly family (and members of whom came along to the presentation) gave a short talk on their history, followed by the formal presentation of the lantern (accompanied by songs and laughter) by American friends on behalf of Jan Kelly, to representatives of the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society.
In a more sombre moment, friends and family gathered in the walled garden at Coole Park in the planting of a sapling, dedicated by Garry Hynes as a new Autograph Tree in memory of the late lamented Ronnie O’Gorman. Ronnie’s death this year too early robbed us of his joy, energy, and love for the arts. If it were not for his vision, generosity, inexhaustible good spirits, and bibliophilic and cultural acumen, it is no exaggeration to say Thoor Ballylee would never have re-opened in 2015.
There we were joined by old colleagues of Ronnie from newspaper days, family members including his son Ben Gregory, who gave an appreciation, and friends new and old. Marion Cox, co-director of the Autumn Gathering with Ronnie for many years, closed the outdoor ceremony by quoting from WB Yeats’s ‘The Municipal Gallery Revisited’, where the poet walks among portraits of his fellow artistic workers. Similarly we were asked to ‘come to this hallowed place’ at Coole and remember that among familiar faces we can ‘look thereon’ and
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.
If 2024 had its reflective moments, 2025 promises to be a year as vibrant, culturally and environmentally, as we’ve ever had.
After months of careful work by local craftspeople, our new millwheel is ready, and awaiting installation at a suitable time this year.
Our nature walks and heritage work continues apace, and a whole programme of cultural events including artistic residences is planned to lift up our hearts and minds when the tower opens this spring.
We’d like to record a special debt of gratitude to all our artists and visitors and workers – and especially our volunteers, who do so much gratis to allow Yeats’s tower at Thoor Ballylee to stay open for all of us.
As a volunteer organization, we need continuing generosity to continue our work. Donate to help us, send a message, and best of all come and join us on our continuing journey through the new year.
