As evidenced by these photographs, our volunteers have been busy at work, preparing W. B. Yeats’s former summer home for Easter reopening.
This means digging, mending, clearing, patching, cleaning, assembling, readying in all possible ways the tower and the gardens, the cottage, the studio, the exhibitions, the fire, the tea, and everything ready for a warm welcome!
Thoor Ballylee opens to visitors from 11 am to 4 pm over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend and from Thursday to Sunday during the month of April.
April opening 2024
11 – 4pm Thursday – Sunday
We look forward to your visit during the 2024 season!
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.
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 The prize was open to anyone, but poems were to be unpublished, in English, and no more than 40 lines.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.
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.
In honour of the 100th anniversary of W.B. Yeats being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society 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 opened on Yeats’s birthday, 13 June 2023, while the closing date for submissions is midnight 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. The 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.
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.
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!”
Stonemason and sculptor Frank McCormack and musicians with one of the new stone benches in the garden
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.”
Poet and prize judge Mary Madec, musician and singer Gabriel Donoghue, Kiltartan Museum director Rena McAllen, lecturer at the University of Galway Adrian Paterson, director and producer Lelia Doolan at the launch
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.
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.
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.
Following a two-year closure to in-person visitors, Thoor Ballylee opened to all comers in 2022 and all here had a busy and exciting year.
The Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society was chosen as a delegate in the European Union’s Cultural Heritage in Action program, and was invited to be on the list of Best Practice Sites in Europe. We are also continuing to work nationally and internationally to address the current environmental issues: to that end we are restoring the mill wheel on site, with the hope of generating our own electricity. We hope to implement a biodiversity project, which will help restore the flora and fauna that surrounded Yeats and his family at Thoor Ballylee, and which is mirrored in his writing.
2023 marks an important time for Thoor Ballylee as that year marks the centenary of Yeats winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. To that end, we are planning a series of events to mark the occasion, as we continue our work to preserve and promote Yeats’s legacy. In tandem with the centenary events, we have an equally ambitious programme of performances, tours, talks, and exhibitions for 2023.
As always, we appreciate your continued interest and support in our work to honour the remarkable Yeats family and historic Norman building, and to keep alive the work of WB Yeats through poetry, culture, history, and love of nature.
If you would like to donate, become a Friend of Thoor Ballylee (or renew your Friend of Thoor Ballylee subscription), we gladly invite you to visit our website donation page.
Many thanks to all our visitors and well-wishers and donors and friends, and wishing you all the best for this season! We close with a photograph of Thoor Ballylee from just last week in all its winter glory.
Today, 13 June, sees the 157th birthday of WB Yeats.
This Thursday 16 June is Bloomsday, a special event this year as 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses.
James Joyce, Ulysses (Paris: Shakespeare & Co., 1922)
For Bloomsday this Thursday Thoor Ballylee celebrates with a special performance of Noramollyannalivialucia: The Muse and Mister Joyce” written by Irish poet Eamon Grennan.
Curlew Theatre Company presents
Noramollyannalivialucia:
The Muse and Mister Joyce
at Yeats’s Tower, Thoor Ballylee
8pm Thursday June 2022
Admission €15. Tickets available on the door: or for bookings phone 091 631436 / 0858620935
This is a solo play for voices based on Nora Barnacle’s life, in which Joyce’s Galway wife Nora is visited by a group of people (the audience) keen for stories about Joyce, and receive some home truths. Extracts from Joyce’s works interweave with Nora’s memories as she composes a portrait of the artist’s wife as an older woman. The play is performed by Curlew Theatre Company with musical interludes by Nicola and Karina Cahill on harp and flute.
Yeats had the idea that Thoor Ballylee might work as an artistic a hub for Irish artists like James Joyce.
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.
On Saturday 30th April 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.
A photograph from the event: all proceeds go to Ukrainian refugee organizations. For more details visit here. And below Nicolay Homenko shows off his artistic skills – this piece was created during the concert!
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’
Thoor Ballylee 