culture

Ukraine Refugees Tea and Poetry Day Ireland and

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

Tea for Ukraine Refugees

This Saturday Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society is hosting a fundraiser in aid of the Ukrainian refugee crisis. It is a fitting venue as much of Yeats’s work, including “Meditations in Time of Civil War”, conceived and written at Thoor Ballylee, considered the nature of war and violence, and led to him receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The event on April 30th 2022 will consist of a afternoon tea served at the cottage in the 14th century tower between 3pm and 4.30pm.

You will be spoiled with a selection of delicious treats kindly provided by local restaurateurs and businesses.

For more details register here .

Poetry Day Ireland

Poetry Day Ireland takes place today, Thursday 28 April 2022. The theme is ‘Written in the Stars’.

Poetry Ireland ask us all to share a poem, read a poem, speak a poem, participate in a Poetry Day Ireland event or programme your own event on the day. Everyone is invited to join in and celebrate, just remember to tag them on #PoetryDayIrl. 

Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society joins in with this weird millennial poem from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899). It refers to a mythical battle of ancient Ireland whose terrifying violence seems to come again, whereupon the speaker humbly submits in peace before the fates written in the stars, dictated by the demiurge, or prime mover of the heavens.

‘The Valley of the Black Pig’

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears

Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,

And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries

Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.

We who still labour by the cromlech on the shore,

The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,

Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you

Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.

WB Yeats, from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899)

‘AE’ (George Russell), ‘Lordly Ones Appearing to a Turf Cutter’

Easter Reopening

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

Easter Saturday 16th April 2022

Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society is delighted to announce our Easter reopening, and welcoming back our visitors – after a two year closure – from 11am this Easter Saturday 16th April 2022! Comhaltas Gaillimh Theas will provide entertainment between 12 noon and 1pm.

Each weekend in April we’ll be open 11-4pm. Further opening hours will be announced for the summer.

Especially thanks to our many helpers, contractors, and volunteers (to help or join us see below) we are primed and ready, and excited to welcome you back!

Volunteers readying the tower for opening!

This Easter Saturday and beyond into spring and summer, come along and learn about the life and work of WB Yeats, the poems he wrote at Thoor Ballylee, and he and his family’s deep connections to the area and the west of Ireland. The cultural revolution his family began would involve the whole island in arts and crafts, so it is fitting that the restoration of the the restoration of the tower with local materials is continued today in the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society’s efforts with local craftworkers and landscape gardeners on the gardens, the Studio at Thoor Ballylee, and the Mill.

Clare Champion

The Clare Champion has an article about us!

Galway Films

For our spring reopening, Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society is presenting the online premieres of new films about Yeats and Galway. Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society youtube channel

With the help of the Spot-lit programme for literary tourism, with camera and editing by Morgan Creative and Seanchas Productions, and featuring local musicians and contributors, these short films are voiced by luminaries like Marie Mullen from Druid Theatre and some of our very own members. They highlight places in County Galway important to Yeats and which feature in some of his finest poems, from ‘The Tower’ to (as here) ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’, as a ghost returns to old haunts.

Come and help!

Thoor Ballylee historic fourteenth Century tower house, once home to Nobel Prize winning poet WB Yeats and his family, is managed and run by an amazing group of volunteers. We are currently adding to our volunteer pool so if you have a love of literature or history, enjoy interacting with people and have four hours a week to spare, please contact Thoor Ballylee at +353 85 862 0935, email thoorballylee@gmail.com, or contact us above.

We are a voluntary group with no permanent external funding. We’d love for you to help us keep this unique heritage site going for all of us today, and for future generations. To join us or donate any amount large or small see the donate page above.

27th Lady Gregory-Yeats Gathering – online!

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

The Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering are delighted to invite you to the 27th edition of the Autumn Gathering.

7pm (Irish Time) Saturday 25 September 2021 (online)

This year’s gathering features a wealth of exciting speakers packed into a short programme. Plus it is available to all-comers anywhere in the world, as it is being celebrated online (see link below).

Lady Gregory 1893, pastel by Lisa Stillman

7pm (Irish Time) Saturday 25 September 2021 (online via Zoom)

Melissa Sihra, Head of Drama and Associate Professor School of Creative Arts, Trinity College Dublin, will Chair the Gathering.

Actor Úna Clancy will discuss her role as Lady Gregory and the creation of the recent Irish Repertory Theater production in New York, Lady G: Plays and Whisperings of Lady Gregory, with clips from the performance.

James Pethica (Professor of Theatre and English, Williams College), will preview his edition of Lady Gregory’s Shorter Writings 1882-1900, to be published later this year.

Barry Houlihan, Archivist at NUI Galway, will preview the 90th Anniversary of Lady Gregory in 2022 as well as remembering Gregory through the decades, from exhibitions to performance.

Christopher Frayling, Cultural Historian, will discuss John Ford and Lady Gregory. 

Time for Q&A, sip tea with a slice of brack in the comfort of your own living-room, and celebrate the magic of Coole Park! Ronnie and Marion and all the crew at the Autumn Gathering do hope you can join them.

The whole evening is now available online to view! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU90DuzD1uA

For more see the website of the Gregory Yeats Autumn Gathering, or please contact Marion Cox on monaleen@msn.com

Wild Child at Thoor Ballylee

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

Come away, O human child! 

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand…

WB Yeats ‘The Stolen Child’ (1888)

Would you like to explore the natural beauty of WB Yeats’ home at Thoor Ballylee in County Galway? Hear his folk and fairy tales, make magic wands and fairy doors? Come and share his love for nature and the legends of the past?

Then join us for our Wild Child celebration this Heritage Week on Wednesday 18 August!.

The event is designed to connect children to the wild wonder of the place, and ignite the magic of the realm that Yeats so loved. There are fairy tales and fables from Yeats as well as poetry and song. We are also preparing a fairy walk with fairy volunteers imparting exciting titbits of woodland lore to children and adults.

This is a free event, but due to Covid 19 restrictions registration for workshops is necessary.

Workshops will be held at the following times:

Wild Child Workshops

Wednesday 18 August 2021

11am, 1pm, 3pm

Suitable for children under 12 years of age, and all those young at heart.

For more information and registration see Wild Child at Thoor Ballylee on Eventbrite.

Please note due to public health guidelines the interior of Thoor Ballylee remains closed for visitors. However our grounds and walks are open to all year round.

Any questions regarding the Wild Child event, please email Anna on aodonnell111@gmail.com.

Yeats Birthday Poets’ Picnic

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

Everyone is invited to join the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society for our annual birthday celebrations! This live picnic will be held at a socially-distanced event in the grounds of Thoor Ballylee at 3pm Sunday June 13. All attendees are invited to read their favourite Yeats poem and say why it matters to them.

Sunday marks the poet WB Yeats’ 156th birthday, but this year the committee would like especially to honour the artists Lily Yeats (her 155th birthday) and Elizabeth Yeats (her 153rd birthday) after whom the Studio at Thoor is named. 

Poetry, song, hampers, cakes, the sound of laughter and running water – all the joy of a birthday picnic – what’s not to like! Especially if you’d like to read, prospective participants should contact aodonnell111@gmail.com

Lily (Susan Mary) Yeats (1866-1949): Landscape at Night

Lily Yeats’s work as an embroiderer is increasingly highly regarded, and not before time. This fine example of her needlework earlier this year exceeded the estimate in auction, going for over nearly €7500.


Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering video available now

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering 2020 

Join Garry Hynes, James Pethica, Joseph Hassett, and Ronnie O’Gorman for discussion of Lady Gregory and Yeats: with song from Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill. 

Due to COVID-19 and government health restrictions this year’s programme of events was streamlined, and is viewable here for remote audiences.

Now available below!

Or see Lady Gregory Yeats Autumn Gathering 2020: youtube

Hosted by Ronnie O’Gorman (Galway Advertiser)

Garry Hynes (Druid Theatre) on staging Lady Gregory’s plays for Galway 2020

James Pethica (Williams College) on All This Mine Alone – the New York Public Library Exhibition curated by Professor Pethica with Colm Toibin.

Joseph Hassett (Buffalo) on his new book Yeats Now: Echoing into Life (2020)

with poetry readings, and music from renowned singer Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill

For more see interviews with Druid cast and Irish Times review for DruidGregory’s 2020 events.

For more on the Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering and its annual programme of events see the website autumngathering.ie

Augusta, Lady Gregory, by John Butler Yeats

Coole Park live concert

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

 

Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering 2020 

and

Coole Culture

present

What is the Stars

An outdoor concert at Coole Park honouring the 200th birthday of the Royal Astronomical Society and the celestial spirits of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Augusta, Lady Gregory with world premieres of newly commissioned pieces. Featuring David Brophy and the Coole Park Band.

 

Play on website or stream on vimeo

What Is The Stars

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” Psalm 19.1.

Timothy Ethan Doyle: Lente

Anselm McDonnell: Liniakea

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: ‘Jupiter’ Symphony 41 in C – K551

with conductor David Brophy (Choir of Ages, High Hopes) and the Coole Park Band

All these pieces explore the heavens: Liniakea is Hawaiian for immense heaven (our Milky Way), Lente ‘imagines a fragment of Sibelius’s 7th Symphony in a black hole’, and Mozart’s 41st Symphony (1788) is named after Jupiter and his thunderbolts.

Presented by the Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering and Coole Culture.

Due to COVID-19 and government health restrictions this year’s programme of events were streamlined, and indeed streamed and recorded for remote audiences, as well as available live to select invited guests. For more on the gathering’s annual events visit:

autumngathering.ie

Autumn Gathering goes online!

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

 

Lady Gregory-Yeats Autumn Gathering 2020 

Saturday 26 September 2020 (and after)

live and online!

autumngathering.ie

Join Garry Hynes, James Pethica, Joseph Hassett, Ronnie O’Gorman for discussion of Lady Gregory and Yeats: with music from Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill and a special concert Coole Celebrations featuring world premieres with James Brophy and the Coole Park Band!

Due to COVID-19 and government health restrictions this year’s programme of events is streamlined, and indeed streamed for remote audiences, as well as available live to select invited guests.

Augusta, Lady Gregory, drawn by John Butler Yeats

7pm Saturday 26 September  (via ZOOM livestream)

autumngathering.ie

James Pethica (Williams College) on ‘All This Mine Alone’ – the New York Public Library Exhibition curated by Professor Pethica with Colm Toibin.

Garry Hynes (Druid Theatre) on staging Lady Gregory’s plays for Galway 2020

Joseph Hassett (Buffalo) on his new book Yeats Now: Echoing into Life (2020)

with music from renowned singer Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill

and hosted by Ronnie O’Gorman (Galway Advertiser)

To Join Zoom Meeting:

see interviews with Druid cast and Irish Times review for DruidGregory’s 2020 events

and earlier

5pm Saturday 26 September  (for a live invited audience)

(available online from Tuesday 29 September @ Thoor Ballylee facebook)

Coole Celebrations

An outdoor concert at Coole Park honouring the celestial spirits of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Augusta, Lady Gregory with world premieres of newly commissioned pieces

Anselm McDonnell: Liniakea

Timothy Ethan Doyle: Lente

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: ‘Jupiter’ Symphony 41 in C – K551

with conductor James Brophy (Choir of Ages, High Hopes) and the Coole Park Band

All these pieces explore the heavens: Liniakea is Hawaiian for immense heaven (our Milky Way), Lente ‘imagines a fragment of Sibelius’s 7th Symphony in a black hole’, and Mozart’s 41st Symphony (1788) is named after Jupiter and his thunderbolts.

Presented by the Autumn Gathering and Coole Culture.

autumngathering.ie

Thoor Ballylee blooms for Yeats’s birthday

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

Every year a Poet’s Picnic is held in celebration of the birthday of WB Yeats. This year is no different. On afternoon of Saturday 13 June 2020 from 2 pm, the poet’s tower in Galway hosts a video event of poetry, music, and memories. This is the first in a series of events held all summer long at Thoor Ballylee, as the tower opens virtually and for outdoor visitors in compliance with COVID-19 restrictions.

WB Yeats Poet’s Picnic 2pm 13 June 2020

Visit Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society Facebook Page

Livestream on

https://www.facebook.com/yeatsthoorballylee/live/

or go to

https://www.facebook.com/events/317595142567428/

We are delighted to say the waters have long gone, our volunteers and staff have removed all sand bags, tidied away all flotsam, and the gardens are thriving: these are all recent photographs! Though due to current restrictions we have not been yet allowed inside, the grounds are spectacular for visitors. And this weekend Thoor Ballylee blooms again to celebrate the 155th birthday of WB Yeats.

First, a reminder of our story.

WB Yeats bought the old Norman tower at Ballylee for a song in 1916, and had it renovated by local builder Michael Rafferty under the direction of architect William A. Scott, with whom Yeats had a lively relationship, describing him on one occasion as a ‘drunken genius’. With its attached thatched cottage it became a comfortable summer home for his wife George and their two children, Michael and Anne, and the Yeats family returned year after year.

Living there inspired Yeats to write some of his best poetry. Fruits of this work were published in two volumes considered by critics among his best: The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair (1933). They contain such poems as ‘The Tower’, ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’, ‘Coole Park 1929’, ‘Blood and the Moon’, and many others, some featured in this weekend’s birthday celebrations.

The Winding Stair (1933) cover by Thomas Sturge Moore

The tower, which Yeats named Thoor Ballylee, fell into disrepair after the poet’s death in 1939. It was given by the children of the poet to Board Failte, who opened it as a tourist information office, while offering tours showing its extraordinary literary heritage.

Built by the de Burgo family in the 14th century as a Hiberno-Norman stronghold, the tower stands beside the Streamstown River and is subject to sporadic winter flooding. It truly is a livestream: the floods have been severe in recent years, so in 2009 the tower was shut by Failte Ireland who decided that it was no longer economically viable. It remained closed until a group of volunteers, with the grand-sounding name of Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, appealed to Failte Ireland to let them re-open the Tower as a visitor centre once again. This was granted, and after restoration and repair work the tower was opened with music and song in June 2015, the 150th anniversary of Yeats’s birth. Exhibitions, tours, and all kinds of cultural events have attracted thousands of visitors. His birthday has been celebrated there ever since.

This summer, these events are set to continue. Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society continues to adhere to all the COVID-19 guidelines from the Government of Ireland. While this does not currently allow for visitors inside the tower, the Society continues to host special events with social distancing in place in the grounds, by the mill wheel, by the river, and online.

In addition to the Poet’s Picnic taking place this Saturday 13 June 2020, there are ambitious plans in the coming year to hold the type of events the tower has become famous for: poetry readings, plays, musical get-togethers, talks of historical, natural, and literary interest, including virtual multimedia tours, talks, and readings from WB Yeats’s inspirational home, and from our new studio space dedicated to art and cultural workshops which opened just last year.

This summer the magic of the tower can thus be experienced in a number of ways. The grounds remain open to visitors practising social distancing, while the tower hosts small gatherings for invited attendees, and an exciting series of events broadcast to the world by video or audio link.

WB Yeats Poet’s Picnic 2pm 13 June 2020

Visit Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society Facebook Page

Livestream on

https://www.facebook.com/yeatsthoorballylee/live/

https://www.facebook.com/events/317595142567428/

To donate to this voluntary group, our webpage yeatsthoorballylee.org has updates, and see also the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society facebook page. Visitors this summer still be able to enjoy the charm of Ballylee, and perhaps agree that it is the perfect place for a poet to rest and write.

 

Still singing: folksinger and friend of Thoor Mary McPartlan dies

/ thebicyclops / Leave a comment

Yesterday we heard the sad news of the death of Mary McPartlan. Leitrim-born McPartlan was a singer, actor, director, promotor and well-known cultural activist for music and the arts in Galway and nationally. She was also a force of nature: despite spending significant energy over a number of years battling with cancer, she always came back stronger, full of new ideas and collaborations; and still singing.

Throughout a varied career, Mary McPartlan worked with Druid theatre, TG4, and RTÉ, as well as helping to found Galway theatre company Skehana, the Galway singers club Riabhóg, the Galway Youth Theatre and Glór, the national Irish music centre in Ennis. With TG4 she founded the thriving Gradam Ceoil National Traditional Music Awards and produced and presented the music show FLOSC.

Working at the National University of Ireland Galway she set up Arts in Action sparking new art projects and bringing together artists, musicians, actors, writers and performers from around the world. Even in these restricted times the series continues to find an audience online.

Her first love though was music. She founded folk duo Calypso in the 1970s, and more recently she received a Fulbright award for her work collecting and editing folksong from Ireland and Scotland to America and beyond. Her debut album The Holland Handkerchief (2004) was heralded as folk album of the year by MOJO Magazine, follow-up Petticoat Loose (2008) featured more of her award-winning solo singing, and she continued to record and tour.

As a longstanding friend of Thoor Ballylee she took a leading role in the last concert held here in October 2019.

Mary McP

As tributes came in from around the world, from RTÉ, Breakingnews.ie and the Irish Times, President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins released a statement:

“It is with deep sadness that Sabina and I have heard of the death of a dear friend, Mary McPartlan, musical director, broadcaster, and one of Ireland’s great folk singers.

She leaves a legacy of achievement for the arts that will endure. […]

Her invocation of place, history and feeling was unique. Sabina and I were among the many who were privileged to call her our friend, and we will all miss her so much.

For myself, I will always hold wonderful memories of being on tour with her and of her singing her tribute to Victor Jara at those five gigs we did together in 2011 in Leitrim, Donegal, Wicklow and Kerry; the wonderful company she was; and later I often admired how brave she was, indomitable, transcending loss and adversity with a nobility of heart and a powerful reach of humanity that was of course always there in her singing and in her life.”

Mary McParlan is featured in many fine performances and live recordings, too many to name here. Her solo version of ‘Lord Gregory’ (also known as ‘The Lass of Aughrim’) from The Holland Handkerchief expresses the strange grief that so inspired James Joyce’s story ‘The Dead’, where a rendition of the song ‘in the old Irish tonality’, ‘made plaintive by distance’ reminds Gretta Conroy of her Galway youth and precipitates the story’s climax.

Mary McPartlan is survived by her husband, Paddy, and daughters Mairéad and Meabh. All at Thoor Ballylee remember well her courage, vivacity and spirit, which continues wherever music is played in Galway.