The Lady Gregory & Yeats Heritage Trail
The Lady Gregory Yeats Trail incorporates historical sites between the towns of Gort and Loughrea associated with Lady Gregory and W.B.Yeats. These sites include Kilmacduagh, Coole Park, Kiltartan Gregory Museum, Thoor Ballylee, Killinane Graveyard, Roxborough Gates, Woodville Walled Gardens and St. Brendan's Cathedral. The unique landscape of South Galway and its people inspired both Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats to create some of their greatest works. Writers, poets, historians, artists and musicians have long been attracted to the area. We invite you to follow in the footsteps of Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats along this trail.
Video created by Tommy Hannon | Molten Sky Media
Opening Thoor Ballylee, Co Galway
Colm Farrell arrived on horse, and read one of Yeat's Poem's , Wandering Aengus
I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands.
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
William Butler Yeats (Irish Poet) home in Gort, Ireland with music
Our visit to the Thoor Ballylee Yeats Centre outside of Galway, Ireland in June 2013.
St. Patrick's Day, 2010 - Kinvara.
The seaside village of Kinvara boasts a literary group which I started up some years ago and which continues today, and which invited several well-known Irish poets to read, among them Noel Monahan. It's as easy to hear Cajun music as Irish traditional music in the village nowadays. The closing and then demolition of the historic Winkles Hotel and Pub, coupled later with the closing of The Plaid Shawl pub, killed off a vital heart-beat of traditional music and dancing in the village. Paid gigs rather than open-house sessions have, as in Galway City, taken over. Not far up the road, in the direction the camera here is pointing, is the historic Doorus House, launch-pad for the Irish National Theatre, but which today is a youth hostel. Similarly a few miles away, Thoor Ballylee, reconstructed home of the poet W.B.Yeats, is a gift-shop, with the Irish tourist authorities successfully resisting any offer to bring writers to read there and make the place a living literary presence. Coole Park does host a lively cultural diary and the village of Gort, Co. Galway, has its annual 'The Forge at Gort' literary festival, this year running March 26 and 27th, organised by the Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude; in spite of the Centre being up and running for eight years it's development (as a museum to commemorate the region's literary heritage, a reading room and administrative centre) is inexplicably opposed by the Arts Office of Galway City Council! {twwc.ie} Many musicians from various parts of the world, including artists and a sprinkling of writers, live in or near Kinvara, which also has a small market.
The Song of Wandering Aengus, by William Butler Yeats
Poem read by Els van Hout at O'Sullivan's Hotel in Gort, Co. Galway.
Read more about this on my blog
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.