Following Norman incursions into Ireland in the late 1100s, the built landscape of Ireland changed forever. From France and England the Normans brought with them the skills to construct stone churches, monasteries, houses, and castles, built in their thousands in key locations across Ireland, using technologies also adopted by the Gaelic Irish population.  

Designed for the protection of families and goods, the smaller Hiberno-Norman stone castles generally called tower houses did not come into vogue until the 15th century, but were then built in great numbers, especially in the west of Ireland. The present imposing stone tower at Ballylee dates from around this time.

According to NUI Galway’s landed estates database, by 1837 the Carrig family was recorded as living in what was known as Ballylee Castle.

On William Gregory’s death control of the demesne passed to his widow Augusta, Lady Gregory who managed the nearby Coole Park Estate. Under Gregory’s watchful eye Coole Park and House had become a centre for literary and political gatherings, welcoming a great number of notable figures of the day, including William Butler Yeats, his brother the painter Jack Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge, George Russell (A.E.), and the first President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde.

At Duras House by the sea in County Clare, together with Edward Martyn, who lived down the road at Tulira Castle, WB Yeats and Gregory founded the Irish Literary Theatre, eventually to become Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.

Yeats and his architect, Professor William A. Scott, spent several years restoring the tower and associated cottage and outbuildings. With the builder Michael Rafferty (whom Yeats insisted on calling ‘Raftery’ after the poet) they took care wherever possible to use local materials. Wood was bought from the disused downriver mill for roofing and furniture, and when the thatching straw was ruined by the damp, local slates were enlisted as roofing for the cottage.

Larger windows were installed in the lower floors, while the tower retained its original windows in the upper part, with a massive stone fireplace rebuilt in stranger’s room at the top, which for quite a time remained roofless. The interior sitting room was decorated with designs of constellations and esoteric symbols by George Yeats, the young wife of the poet, who did most of anybody to make the place habitable.

More than a living space the tower represented the poet’s monument and symbol. Many of Yeats’s most important poems feature the tower prominently: many were written there. The early modernist elegy ‘In Memory of Major Robert Gregory’ remembers the Yeats family’s settling into tower and cottage as it commemorates the death of Robert Gregory, Lady Gregory’s son, an artist who himself had pictured the tower.

Yeats’s books of poems The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair (1933) drew direct inspiration from the tower’s rooted existence and featured views of the tower and stair on covers designed by Yeats’s friend Thomas Sturge Moore.

Long after the death of his father and Lady Gregory the poet’s son Michael Yeats generously arranged to hand over the tower to the care of Ireland West. A native of Carron, Co. Clare, Mary Hanley (1914–1979) had founded the Kiltartan Society in 1961 to foster interest in the literary history of the district, especially that of Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and WB Yeats. It was she who was chiefly responsible for the restoration of Thoor Ballylee (with the aid of Bord Failte and the Yeats family). At the time the Office of Public Works was responsible for the property.

Always prone to damp, due to its proximity to the river Thoor Ballylee is occasionally subject to flooding. The waters ran high in 1995 and over the winter of 2009, when Co. Galway was cut off from the east of the country and the tower was extensively damaged. For a while it appeared that with the financial problems of the Irish government no money would be available to repair it. Ireland West, the custodian of the tower, no longer existing, the organization was subsumed into Fáilte Ireland whose mandate does not generally include protecting heritage sites.

In 2019 following extensive fundraising the Studio at Thoor Ballylee opened in what was once a garage outbuilding. It is dedicated to the craftwork of the poet’s sisters Elizabeth and Lily Yeats, and plays host to artists workshops and educational and cultural programmes.

It is hard to overstate the building’s international significance, and its importance to the local community. Fundraising is ongoing to keep the building alive for future generations. We hope you enjoy learning more about the tower and that you can become a friend or come and visit us soon.