Happy New Year from Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society!

The Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society is delighted to announce the coming of Yeats’s original candlesticks to their home in Thoor Ballylee.

With the unmatched generosity of Joseph Hassett and Ronnie O’Gorman these magnificent large brass candlesticks (or altar-sticks) were acquired for the tower. In the 1920s they stood before the great fireplace in the family sitting room in the Norman tower itself. It must have been a magical sight, beneath the dark blue ceiling painted by George Yeats with stars and symbols and next to the old stonework, reworked by the architect William Scott. Although most of the tower’s refurbishment was done with local materials, the candlesticks themselves were probably made in Birmingham by Pearson-Page, a company specialising in authentic copies of historic metal-work in brass, copper, and iron.

Ronnie O’Gorman of Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society admires the candlesticks at their stop in Galway City Museum

The candlesticks come with excellent provenance. They were purchased in the Yeats Family Collection sale in Sotheby’s in London. The sale attracted considerable publicity  as it included not only manuscripts, drawings, and furniture from the collections of WB Yeats, but artwork from Jack B Yeats, the sisters EC and SM Yeats, and paintings and sketchbooks by their father John Butler Yeats.

Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society are very proud to have these fine objects, and there is no more fitting place for them to reside. An event to celebrate their arrival is planned in January, hosted by NUI Galway.