gort

Down by the Salley Gardens: Music at Thoor

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We welcome The Marine Singers Choir, from Renville, Oranmore, for their magical first performance in Thoor Ballylee.

With soprano Helen Hancock conducting, and pianist Teresa Turner, the repertoire will include works by WB Yeats, marking the centenary year of Yeats receiving the Nobel Prize.

Down By the Salley Gardens

Friday 12 May, 8pm

Tickets €15 (online and on the door see below)

All proceeds to Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society

Down by the Salley Gardens

A musical evening with the Marine Singers and guests at Thoor Ballylee

The Marine Singers, a renowned Galway based choir led by conductor and singer Helen Hancock, perform a much-anticipated concert on Friday May 12th, 8pm at the historic Thoor Ballylee, the former home of renowned poet WB Yeats. This will be the choir’s first-ever performance in this unique and atmospheric venue, which is known for its magical acoustics. The Choir are celebrating 10 years since their formation for the inaugural Galway Choir Factor event in 2013.

The concert promises to be a feast for the senses, featuring classical and contemporary music, performed by the talented Marine Singers, as well as local young musicians Lilian Owens and Sean Hancock from Coole Music. The programme has been carefully curated to showcase the choir’s versatility and range, and to offer a memorable musical experience for all who attend. Expect songs from the sixteenth century to the present day, inspired by the water – including The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre and Die Forelle (The Trout) by Schubert with music by Dowland, Fauré, Vaughan Williams, Ola Gjeilo and a selection of Irish airs.

Helen Hancock, who has been conducting the choir since 2018, is not only a skilled conductor, but also a soprano with a stunning voice. She will also perform during the concert, adding an extra layer.

The Galway Shape Note Singers, another highly regarded choir, will also be joining the Marine Singers for this special occasion. Their collaboration promises to be a highlight of the evening, as they blend their voices together in a celebration of music ,community and the powerful distinctive sound of Sacred Harp singing.

All proceeds go towards the upkeep of Thoor Ballylee.

The choir gratefully acknowledges the support of Opus II Music Store Galway.

Tickets €15 – available on EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.ie/…/down-by-the-salley-gardens…

Limited tickets available on the door on the night. Please contact 0868137216 for more details or via our social media :

https://www.facebook.com/TheMarineSingers

More Information

The Marine Singers has been in existence for 10 years, originally made up of staff from the Marine Institute based at Rinville, Oranmore under their conductor Carmel Dooley. The choir welcomed Oranmore conductor/soprano Helen Hancock as conductor in September 2018. Live rehearsals resumed after the pandemic in September 2022 and performances since include Galway Mental Health Association’s Annual Celebration of Choral Music at St Nicholas Church in October 2022. In december 2022, the choir performed a lunchtime concert at Oranmore Library and sang carols at the Cancer Care West campus at UCHG. The choir looks forward to performing with their director Helen Hancock at Clifden Arts Festival in September 2023.

Helen Hancock is a freelance soprano whose passions include art song, chamber music and baroque music. Helen’s most recent performance was a recital at Farmleigh House, Dublin with pianist Órán Halliagn. Helen was a recipient of an Arts Council Agility Award in 2022 which funded coaching on Baroque and lieder repertoire in Berlin and she performed at the Bloomsday 100 celebrations at the Irish Embassy in Berlin in June 2022. Helen will be in Dingle on May 20th in recital with composer and pianist Criostóir Ó Loingsigh and in the Galway Early Music Festival on May 27th with Mark keane and Vox Orbis . Helen has been on the faculty of Coole Music and Arts for twelve years as a recorder and singing teacher and is the Director of Whistleblowers Recorder Ensemble.

Thoor Ballylee opens for spring season!

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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!

The highest room in the tower: Theresa and Kathleen take on the “Strangers’ Room”
Adam cleans the windows
Carpentry and tree management in the grounds
The ever-present Lelia Doolan with some of our magnificent volunteers (and dog).

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!

New Year at Thoor Ballylee

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Remembering the time of WB Yeats’s death eighty-four years ago, when according to WH Auden he ‘disappeared in the dead of winter’, this year sees WB Yeats’s 158th birthday, and the 100th anniversary of his Nobel Prize for Literature from 1923. At Thoor Ballylee we look back and look forward: we reflect on the past year’s happenings, and anticipate the exciting new season.

The clear out of the exhibitions and fittings in the tower and cottage has long been complete and flood barriers are in place until the spring. Many coats of paint were applied to the downstairs area; rich velvet curtains replaced rotten door & jambs (with the help of Anderson contractors); the audio-visual presentation is newly updated ready for the new year. Through this frosty winter the tower waits in welcome, as for so many years, for pilgrims and visitors from around the world.

2022 Season

Following an enforced two-year closure, we were delighted to back in business to in-person, on-site visitors. The past twelve months for Thoor Ballylee brought lots of hard work and many challenges, but it was our pleasure to welcome back three thousand visitors during the 2022 season, all eager to explore the home of WB Yeats and attend the many organised events.

This year’s season opening began with a warm welcome back as we hosted afternoon tea at Thoor Ballylee. This was followed by an evening concert with Ciaran Cannon & guests, all in aid of the Gort Welcomes Ukraine Fund.

The season also featured:

Two performances of Yeats Joyce and Nora by our local Wild Swan Theatre Company;

an evening with Soprano Helen Hancock;

the annual Poet’s Picnic for WB Yeats, attended by our generous benefactor, Joe Hassett;

…and a special performance of Nora by The Curlew Theatre Company, to mark Bloomsday 100 years of James Joyce’s Ulysses, with musical interlude by Nicola and Karina Cahill.

All week long during Heritage Week as ever the local community took the chance to engage, and the Studio @ Thoor Ballylee was the venue for a book launch on the History of the GAA by Steve Dolan.

For Culture Night Jo Beth Young and guests treated us to an enchanting evening of stories and song with her Shadow Navigation Show.

The long-awaited in-person return of the Yeats Lady Gregory Autumn Gathering brought many Augusta Gregory and Yeats enthusiasts, including many Gregory family members, to Thoor, which hosted day two of the Gathering.

The return of The Songbirds brought our visitor events for 2022 to a close.

But that was not all. Thoor Ballylee was represented at the inaugural Gort Community Fair.

The Society was chosen as a delegate in the EU’s Cultural Heritage in Action Programme and was included on the list of Best Practice Sites in Europe.

Mary Hanley’s sons paid a visit and donated a precious and valuable collection of books to the tower.

And schools and education groups returned to the tower to learn about its history and heritage.

We hosted a civil wedding ceremony for a lovely Texan couple and a several wedding parties chose Thoor and its surroundings for wedding day photos.

And his was a year for documentaries! – starring Miriam Margolyes, Julia Bradbury, and our own Ronnie O’Gorman and Rena McAllen. Highlighting the natural world and cultural impact of Thoor Ballylee, RTE, Channel 4, Bat Conservation Ireland, and a German TV crew came to film in the tower beside the stream at Ballylee.

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to our generous benefactors for their continued support. This year with their help we were able to acquire an original Elizabeth Corbett Yeats picture from 1934.

Our thanks go to our army of volunteers and craftworkers and professional contractors helping us at Thoor Ballylee.

Most of all, our appreciation goes to the fantastic group of volunteers (ten of whom joined our team this year) who threw open the doors and shutters, lit the fire and the candles and welcomed in the many guests, pre-booked tours, schoolchildren, and other groups and individual visitors, seven days a week over a period of six months. We thank Pat O Looney, Paul O Donnell, Tonii Kelly, Pauline Kennelly, John Morgan, Aidan Eames, Anne Leahy, Gerry Conneely, Dido, Ruth Lynch Delassus, Gerry Wynne, and more! The call for a Meitheal for the spring clean was responded to with much enthusiasm.

To our reliable car park team Gus and JJ who guaranteed our safety during events, thank you, and for lighting our way to the tower – so spectacularly – thank you JJ Finn.

To our mainstays – the hardworking Nichola Baverstock and Anthony Coppinger – Míle Buíochas.

All requests re maintenance were speedily addressed by local partners: shutters were replaced and painted, presses, windows & doors repaired, a new boiler installed, leaking toilet fixed and a grand new bridge erected in the picnic park.

Thanks go to Eugene Murphy, work on renovating and reinstating the mill wheel continues. The project has caught the interest of former Minister and TD Frank Fahey and other locals, and as a result, a fundraising drive has been set in motion to fund the restoration of the mill wheel.

Let us not forget the tremendous support of Failte Ireland and our many donors and friends.

We have completed another successful and inspiring year at Thoor Ballylee. Whether flood waters arrive or not, we look forward to a wonderful new year in 2023.

Míle Buíochas do cách. Meanwhile if you’d like to contribute however modestly to all the cultural and community work that we do and to the upkeep of this unique building and surrounds please visit our donate page.

Our first visitors of 2023 came all the way from Tennessee! We hope to see you too during this coming season.

Songbirds close season at Thoor Ballylee

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For our final night of the season at Thoor Ballylee on Saturday 8 October, we are delighted to welcome back The Songbirds. Tickets are selling fast and there is limited space.

The Songbirds

featuring Annie & Marie Burns

and

Kate Purcell

with guest Doug Robinson

sing Thoor Ballylee

7.30pm Saturday 8 October

Tickets EU15

Please call Thoor Ballylee on 091631436 mobile 0858620935 or email yeatsthoorballylee@gmail.com to reserve your ticket.

This is the last event of our first season for a while fully reopened to in-person visitors – come and experience the warmth and love with live music at Yeats’s Tower! Please call Thoor Ballylee on 091631436 mobile 0858620935 or email yeatsthoorballylee@gmail.com to reserve your ticket.

Culture Night 2022 at Thoor Ballylee

Plays and Poets Picnic

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2022 is a literary summer season! In the run up to WB Yeats’s 157th birthday on 13 June, and Bloomsday on 16 June celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, we have special cultural events taking place at Thoor Ballylee.

Poets Picnic

3pm Sunday 12 June 2022

+

4pm Wandering Stars

performed by the Wild Swan Theatre Company

Poets Picnic

Our Poets Picnic is free to all young and old! It is an annual gathering of poetry lovers and all folk interested in poetry and culture, in honour of WB Yeats’s birthday. Do come along for our magnificent outdoor picnic spread, with readings of Yeats’s poems, thoughts about his life and legacy, and reflections and poems by other artistic figures.

Wandering Stars

This year the Poets Picnic is followed by a play performed by The Wild Swan Theatre company. Written by Joe Hassett and directed by Marion Cahill-Collins, this explores the intertwined lives of Yeats and Joyce and Nora Barnacle. Admission to the play which starts at 4pm inside the tower is €10 with tickets available on the door.

Cast: Claire O Donnell as Nora, Justin McDermott as Joyce, Gerry Conneely as Yeats.

Thoor Ballylee rises again

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In these trying times it is a pleasure to report some good news.

The recent spell of dry weather has enabled Thoor Ballylee once more to stand proud of the waters. Here is Yeats’s tower yesterday morning in spring sunshine.

IMG_2200

We have come a long way.

At their height, floodwaters reached nearly to the top of the windows.

Earlier in the month, what Yeats called ‘the road by my door’ was a river.

cof_vivid

And the bridge was invisible from view.

oznor_vivid

Even on St Patrick’s Day there was still waters surrounding the tower:

Thoor low flood

Now the flood waters have finally begun to pass, the job can begin of recovery and cleaning. As soon as social distancing guidelines allow.

In the meantime, stay well and stay safe. Remember poetry and art in these times: Thoor Ballylee will still be here for visits when we get back to normal. If you wish to help with our clean up and recovery effort, join us or donate: go to our Donate page.

In case you missed it, a reminder of why Thoor Ballylee is so important to Ireland and to all admirers of WB Yeats and his family: Roy Foster in the Irish Times on Thoor Ballylee.

Thoor Ballylee year in review

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The last year represents one of our most successful years ever here at Yeats’s Tower. The opening of the Studio at Thoor Ballylee represented 2019’s biggest achievement, and one that will keep giving for many years to come. With generous support, we completed in double-quick time the conversion of the Yeats family’s old garage into a new vibrant space for workshops, events, education, art, and community, further enriching this place full of poetry and creativity.

By October 2019, when the curtain came down on our fifth season open at Thoor Ballylee, an estimated 4, 580 visitors had come and experienced the magic of Yeats’s tower. With your help we hope 2020 can be even better! Your continuing support is much appreciated.

The season at Thoor Ballylee opened on Easter Saturday in late April, with spring springing and with tea and Easter Bunny cake kindly provided by our generous and longest serving volunteer, Tonii. This was just the warm up for our regular readings and celebrations for Yeats’s birthday party, held every year (with cake!) on or around 13 June.

‘Sailing to Byzantium’

Launching the Studio at Thoor Ballylee was our first major event of the season.  Guest of honour and speaker of a fine welcoming address was the inimitable Sabina Higgins. Spoken poetry came from poet Mary O Malloy, and was followed by a  fluid rendition of ‘The Salley Gardens’ by soprano, Helen Hancock. Doing the honours of the official opening in cutting the ribbon was our very own esteemed author and educator Sr Mary de Lourdes Fahy.

The exhibition, assembled from materials from our own and NUI Galway’s archives, featured women artists like Elizabeth Rivers and especially the work of Elizabeth and Lily Yeats, in arts and crafts, printing and embroidery, after whom the studio is dedicated. Pride of place went to exquisite embroidered banners designed and made by the Yeats family and female workforce at Dun Emer workshop, rarely seen outside their home St Brendan’s Cathedral Loughrea, woven under the direction of Lily Yeats and featuring saints designed by Jack B. Yeats and his wife Mary Cottenham Yeats. Presiding over the studio space and presenting an expert weaving demonstration was Kathy Mooney. Later in the year the Studio at Thoor Ballylee was the venue for a day of spinning and weaving, now becoming a very popular annual event.

Elizabeth Rivers, from Stranger in Aran, Cuala Press (1946)

So already the Studio at Thoor Ballylee has been put to good use. Local artist, Cindy Lund, came to reside in there  for a week, creating some amazing original work, attracting other artists, giving local children an opportunity to draw in Yeats’s garage, while generating great interest in Thoor.

The studio was also the venue for weekly evening classes with Jackie Quelly, a lecture on Maud Gonne’s Men, by Anthony J. Jordan, an embroidery workshop with Sandra from Sacra King Irish Fibre Crafters and an exhibition and various artistic activities by the wonderful Kinvara Sanctuary group. Later as part of the Yeats Lady Gregory Autumn gathering Marina Carr came to give an expert playwrighting workshop here.

Marion Cox in conversation with Marina Carr

We are indeed indebted to Denis Creaven, from the Institute of Education, who has faithfully, year after year, given his two day mid-term lectures to Leaving Cert students, free gratis, with all proceeds going to Thoor Ballylee.

The mill by the river, on a sunny summer’s day in June, was the setting for a joint recital by Coole Music and an incredible youth orchestra from Norway, conducted by Katherina Baker. Two weeks later we were treated to an afternoon of medieval music by the junior members of Coole Music, fittingly attired in medieval costumes, performing in our medieval tower house.

To mark Heritage week, field archaeologist Dr Christy Cunniffe gave a talk and presentation on vernacular houses. Anna O Donnell gave an fascinating demonstration on the story of butter and butter making while soprano Helen Hancock delighted us with an evening of opera and the story of song. On Culture Night two rare performances occurred at Thoor of Yeats’s and Augusta Gregory’s The Pot of Broth  by a pioneering local theatre group. This was followed by Anna O Donnell‘s own broth tasting, and with Lelia Doolan’s insights into the family life of the Yeatses, audiences went away fully satisfied.

In September we were, once again, honoured to host The Lady Gregory and Yeats Autumn Gathering, and the studio and tower was the host for important sessions on women’s writing and creativity. As noted, internationally renowned playwright Marina Carr with Head of Drama at Trinity College, Dublin, Melissa Sihra, conducted a workshop for playwrights in the studio. Film producer Lelia Doolan gave an enlightening lecture on the actress and artistic director Ria Mooney and the Abbey Theatre, while the local Wild Swan Theatre group brought the weekend to a close with their premiere production of a new play, Lady Gregory’s Ingredients.

World renowned storyteller, Martin Shaw (Cista Mystica) chose Thoor Ballylee as the Irish venue for his sold-out story telling workshop and evening performance. This event attracted participants from as far afield as Germany and New Zealand, and proved a most successful event in terms of enjoyment and publicity. A film made by Grant Thompson around the event with Martin Shaw at Thoor Ballylee discussing Yeats  was featured on social media and widely viewed.

Thoor Ballylee ended the year as it began as a hub for the arts and for community: the many musical events in the series included expert local group The Burren Bandits while Máirtín O Connor, Garry O Brien and singer Mary McPartlan brought another busy season to a close.

Thoor Ballylee would like to give thanks for the generosity of our amazing 2019 volunteers: Rosemary, Rose, Tonii, Karen, Liam, Gus, Pat O Looney, Pat Farrell.For their never-ending help, our Tús members: Khrystof , Dominic, Joe, and Frank (CE scheme).  To JJ and family members for manning the car park, controlling the traffic, lighting our way in the dark and helping where needed. And to our never-failing staff  Eoghan MacDonagh and the dedicated Nichola.

All this hard work, dedication, and passion for W.B. Yeats, for Thoor Ballylee, and for the arts and Galway culture, was fittingly rewarded in when we were awarded the prestigious Cathaoirleach’s (Mayor’s) Award for Arts and Culture 2019.

Marion Cox, Rena McAllen, Colm Farrell, Anna O Donnell, Lelia Doolan of the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society

All this, and we couldn’t have done it all without you!  Despite our recent success in winning a competitive Government of Ireland grant to help open the studio, we rely entirely on volunteers and private donations to keep going, and making sure Yeats’s legacy is preserved and open for worldwide visitors and new generations. Please come and visit us in the new season, and if you can become a friend or donate to our fund!

Grand Season Closing Concert

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Come and celebrate our 2019 season with a grand Yeatsian evening of poetry, music, song, and stories.

And enjoy of course the warm hospitality of our Thoor hosts, and the chance to ascend the tower one last time in 2019.

Grand Season Closing Concert at Thoor Ballylee

Máirtín O’Connor and Garry O’Briain
with
Mary McPartlan

A grand Yeatsian evening of music, song, & stories featuring box, guitar, and singing

Saturday 19th October 8pm
Tickets 15 euro
Call 0858620935 or email
yeatsthoorballyleesociety@gmail.com

 

Culture Night at Thoor: The Pot of Broth

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The Pot of Broth

A short play by W. B. Yeats and Augusta Gregory is our featured event for Culture Night at Thoor Ballylee.

The Pot of Broth was premiered in Dublin in 1902 at the Irish National Theatre even before it became the Abbey Theatre. Yeats called it a ‘little farce’, but it pioneered the use of local dialect speech foreshadowing the later comedies of Gregory and J.M. Synge – and some of the comic relief of Yeats’s tragedies. This taut and tightly-worked piece is directed by Anthony Hall and presented by a local theatre group in its first ever performance at Thoor Ballylee, alongside a short talk about the early Abbey Theatre and some real pots of delicious home-cooked broth for the audience.

Drop in for Culture Night Friday 20th September for any of two performances at 7.15pm and 8.15pm – stay and enjoy our exhibitions, climb the tower in the setting sun, and consume our hospitable home-made broth!

 

Sanctuary Event at Thoor Ballylee

Writers and artists invite public to discover for themselves at interactive exhibit at Thoor Ballylee

A collective of eight poets, writers and visual artists from County Galwaypresent their original works on the theme of sanctuary at a one-day exhibit on Sunday, September 15th, 2019 from noon at the Studio at Thoor Ballylee, outside Gort. The event, The Roots of Your Refuge, will be free and open to the public, and offered rain or shine. Light refreshments will be served.

Conceived by poet, educator, and psychotherapist Aoife Reilly, the exhibition is the culmination of a five-month exploration of what sanctuary means in the natural and modern worlds. It consists of readings of poetry and prose, interactive exhibits, writing exercises, guided meditations, and artworks displayed in the Studio and surrounding woods. Each element was created specifically for this event.

Works will be arranged along a trail, with contributions from each artist and writer presented over the course of the afternoon. Visitors are invited to enjoy the part indoor, part outdoor event in this peaceful wooded setting where they can take in words and images, contribute their own, and tap into what sanctuary means to them.

“This has been a rare opportunity to delve deeply into the age-old need for sanctuary, and set our imaginations free in a beloved natural environment,” said artist Aisling O’Leary, one of the project’s contributors. “For many people, sanctuary is an internal place, but one we arrive at most easily by tapping into nature.”

The grounds and medieval tower house at Thoor Ballylee were a place of sanctuary and inspiration for the poet W.B. Yeats, Nobel laureate for Literature, who spent summers there with his family before and during the Irish Civil War. The curated site attracts visitors from around the world for its serenity and rich history, offering them a place to explore what poet Reilly calls “the sanctity of green/ when you’re shaken to the bone.”

Thoor Ballylee opens!

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Thoor Ballylee opens to all visitors from Saturday 20th April 2019. Yeats’s famous tower is open all summer for visits, cultural events, crafts workshops, and more!

Come and visit the fourteenth-century Hiberno-Norman tower featured in so many of W.B. Yeats’s best poems.

The Winding Stair and other Poems (1929)

Climb the winding stair (and mind our precious bats and nesting jackdaws!).

Discover more about the life and work of W.B. Yeats in world-class exhibitions.

Join in our numerous cultural events, performances, and workshops!

Jeremie Cyr-Cooke (Ghost of Cuchulain) and Orlaith Ni Chearra (Fand/Woman of the Sidhe) work on choreography for Yeats’s The Only Jealous of Emer

Treat yourself to tea and cake by our roaring fire, and browse in our giftshop.

Or just soak in the atmosphere of the Norman tower and beautiful surrounds.

Our first special event of 2019 is the launch of our new studio space, The Studio @ Thoor Ballylee. Open as a working space for artists and audiences, and featuring workshops, educational events, exhibitions, symposiums, and discussion groups, it forms a vibrant cultural hub in the west of Ireland that matches the commitment of the Yeats sisters to art and education. Funded by generous donors and the Department of Culture, the studio opens in honour of Lily & Elizabeth Yeats, artists and pioneer embroiders, printers, and educators.

Our grand opening at 3pm Sunday 28th April features local artists and speakers and a wonderful exhibition of the Yeats sisters’ Cuala Industries material.

For more details see our visitors page. Our latest 2019 calendar of events is available here. As a non-profit community organization, Thoor Ballylee is run by volunteers. To find out how you can help us in our mission to keep open Yeats’s tower for new generations click here.

See you soon!