Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a welcome opportunity to speak about the huge number of activities and events taking place to mark the birth date of William Butler Yeats. He is not somebody removed by history but a person who sat on these seats and contributed to debates in this Chamber, the walls and ceiling of which resounded to the sound of his voice. He is very much part of our recent history. The Minister and Senator Susan O'Keeffe referred to the love he had for Sligo. Like Patrick Kavanagh in County Monaghan and Seamus Heaney in Ulster, Yeats's work is Sligo.

Perhaps it might be useful for future generations if I were to outline Yeats's biography. He was born in Sandymount in Dublin and of Anglo-Irish descent. His father, John Butler Yeats, was a descendant of Jervis Yeats, a Williamite soldier, linen merchant and well known painter who died in 1712. Jervis's grandson, Benjamin, married Mary Butler from a landed family, the famous Butlers of Ormond in County Kildare. At the time of his marriage John Yeats was studying law, but he abandoned law to study art at Heatherleys art school in London. His mother, Susan Mary Pollexfen, came from a wealthy merchant family based in Sligo who owned a milling and shipping business. Soon after William's birth the family relocated to the Pollexfen home at Merville in Sligo to stay with his mother's extended family. The young poet came to think of the area as his childhood and spiritual home. Over time, its landscape became his symbolic country of the heart.

The Butler Yeats family were highly artistic. William's brother Jack became an esteemed painter, while his sisters, Elizabeth and Susan Mary, who were known to family and friends as Lolly and Lilly became involved in the arts and crafts movement. That is the context in which Yeats came to embrace Sligo and its environs, although he also ventured into County Leitrim. We have always cast envious eyes across the county boundary into Sligo because it rarely acknowledges the fact that he also drew inspiration from County Leitrim.

I had an interesting experience approximately 20 years ago while I was investigating events in the life of one of my heroes, Charles Stewart Parnell. We hear about the Redmondites in Waterford, but if I had lived during that period, I would definitely have been a Parnellite. I discovered that Parnell and his wife had been married in Steyning, a village in west Sussex not far from Bognor Regis, where I have family connections. When the children were small, we used to visit once or twice a year. I also visited Brighton where Parnell and Katharine O'Shea lived after they were married. There is only street in Steyning, with a large manor house at one end. A plaque on the wall of the house revealed that Yeats had lived there in 1938, just prior to his death in 1939. It is strange that I never saw another reference to this village, but he must have made an impact, given that a plaque was erected to commemorate him. I visited the village to investigate the activities of Parnell and was astounded to find that another famous Irishman lived in the same village.

We cannot fully celebrate this year of Yeats without Lissadell being a central part of the activities. It was where he wrote his most famous poem about two girls in kimonos like gazelles. Only last week I was invited by Eddie Walsh and Constance Cassidy, the owners of Lissadell, to attend the launch of the special events taking place on Saturday. I stood at the actual window that had inspired Yeats's poem. Just like I am aware of his presence in this House, Lissadell reminded me of the continuum of history. I cannot praise highly enough what Eddie and Constance are doing in Lissadell. They have transformed the tourism potential of County Sligo and the north west. Several years ago, while I was chairman of Fáilte Ireland, the Yeats trail was launched by Fáilte Ireland north west. The late Seamus Heaney was in Sligo for the launch and I was honoured to be involved. We saw great promise in establishing Lissadell as a central part of the Yeats trail, but then the court case happened, Lissadell was shut down and that aspect of what was to be an important aspect of the tourism product of County Sligo and the north west was shut down with it. It has now reopened thanks to the marvellous work done by Eddie and Constance to enhance it as a tourist product and it is a must see place for anybody interested in Yeats, Constance Markievicz and our history. It is vital to the story of Yeats. Senator Susan O'Keeffe has done outstanding work on the project and I wish her continued success in her endeavours.

I will conclude by making a connection with County Leitrim. One of Yeats's most famous poems was about Glencar. Leitrim County Council has done an extraordinarily good job in making Glencar accessible to what will be a significant number of visitors interested in the connection with Yeats. His poem about it is long but I will only read one verse:

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

I wish those involved in the Yeats weekend the most outstanding success, both at home and abroad.