The interior of tower and cottage at Thoor Ballylee in South County Galway may have closed for the winter, but the spirit of the Nobel Prize-winning poet WB Yeats lives on.

Stockholm University was the venue for a major conference of the International Yeats Society remembering the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature and the circumstances of its giving to WB Yeats, featuring keynotes from Professors Roy Foster, Marjorie Howes, Margeret Mills Harper, and Paul Muldoon.

This was not the only recent ceremony connected to Yeats’s award. This autumn the award to the winners of a major new poetry competition to mark the 100th anniversary of Nobel Prize took place at Thoor Ballylee. The Yeats Thoor Ballylee Poetry Prize is an initiative of the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, who are custodians of the poet’s medieval tower house, near Gort, in Co.Galway.

Film maker and Thoor Ballylee Society board member Lelia Doolan noted: “Yeats wrote in a letter ‘I am of late feeling greatly inspired within the walls of an old tower house that I own in the West of Ireland – Thoor Ballylee’, and so we feel very happy to honour with this prize his old home, to commemorate his enduring, vivid legacy and to offer an invitation to poets worldwide to connect, through their work, with this wonderful place.”

From its launch on Yeats’s birthday, the award attracted hundreds of entrants from around the world. The prize was open to anyone, but poems were to be unpublished, in English, and no more than 40 lines. There to present the prizes to the winners was poet and chief judge Mary Madec, and guest of honour Caitriona Yeats, harpist, granddaughter of the poet, and old friend of Thoor Ballylee.

The winners were Breda Joyce, with third prize, Kitty Donnelly, with second prize, and Catherine Phil MacCarthy with first prize. As it happens quite a few of the entered poems employed local scenery, and made Yeatsian connections. Yeats’s poem ‘A Coat’, about determining to take off his rhapsodist’s song cloak, an embroidered coat made out of mythologies to stand in plain view is echoed here in interesting ways by the winner of the third prize, Breda Joyce, in the following poem:

On the Seventh Day

For six-days of the week,

my father served behind a counter,

sentenced to pay back loans

that sank his broad shoulders.

But when Sunday came,

he put on wellingtons

to walk the land,

stony fields that crouched

behind limestone walls.

When a mist rose from the Corrib

and veiled the hills near Inchagoill,

my father wore his heavy coat.

Later, when he could no longer walk,

the fields observed a Sunday silence.

In the upstairs room his breath laboured

against the cold lakeside air.

So let us remember him

not at some fancy hotel table,

but in fields where his uneven steps

followed sheep through gaps,

his shadowed eyes brooding

in the half-light where Connemara hills

have become an embroidered cloak

that wraps his presence round us.           

Anna O’Donnell, chair of the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, joined poet Mary Madec and Caitriona Yeats to present the prizes to the winners: Catherine Phil MacCarthy, Kitty Donnelly, and (the sister of) Breda Joyce.

Poetry Prize Details

For more see our dedicated page with competition rules.

Tower

Although the tower interior and exhibitions are closed for the winter, visits are still possible to experience the bridge, garden, and river walk up to the old mill. A full programme of events will continue next year. Meanwhile as a voluntary organization Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society relies on your time and contributions. Join us, help out, or donate to keep Yeats’s spirit alive at the tower.

The tower home of WB Yeats was the location for the launch of a major new poetry competition to mark the 100th anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to the renowned Irish poet. The Yeats Thoor Ballylee Poetry Prize is an initiative of the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society, who are custodians of the poet’s medieval tower house, near Gort, in Co.Galway.

“This is an exciting year for Thoor Ballylee as it is the centenary of Yeats’s Nobel Prize,” said Anna O’Donnell, the Chair of Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society. “With the kind assistance of Creative Ireland, we are celebrating the occasion by launching the Yeats Thoor Ballylee International Poetry Prize. We are inviting poets, not just from Ireland, but from all over the world to celebrate with us, by sharing their work, and connecting with this magical place where Yeats spent some of the happiest and most creative years of his life.”

The launch celebrated Yeats’s birthday, and drew a collection of poets and musicians and artists as well as supporters of the arts.

Poetry Prize Details

In honour of the 100th anniversary of W.B. Yeats being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society has launched the Yeats Thoor Ballylee International Poetry Prize. The award will take place at Thoor Ballylee, the former home of W.B. Yeats, located in Gort, Co Galway, Ireland.

The poetry competition opens on Yeats’s birthday, 13 June 2023, while the closing date for submissions is midnight (GMT) 18 August 2023. The prize is open to anyone, but poems must be unpublished, in English, and no more than 40 lines. There is a small entry fee, but also a first prize of €1,000, second and third prizes, and the prospect of publication at Yeats’s tower itself and on our website. This year’s judge, poet Mary Madec, will determine first, second and third place. Mary was the recipient of the Hennessy XO Prize for Emerging Poetry in 2008 and has published several collections of poetry with Salmon Poetry.

For more see our dedicated page with competition rules and our entry portal.

Tower events

As well as launching the Poetry Prize, Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society has many other events planned for this historic year at Yeats’s tower.

“There will be concerts and lectures to mark the centenary as well as a specially commissioned play about the poet called Nobel Words.” says Anna O’Donnell. “We’ve also embarked on a major project this year, with the help of Community Foundation Ireland, to return the land and gardens to reflect how they would have been when the Yeats family lived here, as well as upgrading the walkways and picnic areas to make them accessible for all, and adding wonderful new stone benches for visitors. But perhaps the most exciting ongoing project is the restoration of the old mill wheel on site. Once this is done, there is the possibility to generate our own electricity using water power!”

For now, the custodians of Yeats Tower are hoping to generate a flood of entries for the Yeats Thoor Ballylee International Poetry Prize. Film maker and Thoor Ballylee Society board member Lelia Doolan hopes that aspiring poets from around the world will be moved to write new poetry just as Yeats himself was by the power of the place: “Yeats wrote in a letter ‘I am of late feeling greatly inspired within the walls of an old tower house that I own in the West of Ireland – Thoor Ballylee’, and so we feel very happy to be launching this Poetry Prize from his old home, to commemorate his enduring, vivid legacy and to offer an invitation to poets worldwide to connect, through their work, with this wonderful place.”