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‘He strode the world stage like no other poets or writers of his time.’
Photo by Donal Hackett
Next year will see a truly global celebration of W.B Yeats, his life and his work. Sligo will host a number of these very special events.
Susan O’Keefe
When Yeats wrote about the mystical Lake Isle of Inish- free in 1890, he revealed
a personal emotion; his sense of loss for the most extraordinary place that
he had ever known. Yeats understood then, in his young life, and for all of the rest of his life, that Sligo was his spiritual home, the place that inspired some of his greatest poetry as well as his most beautiful poetry. And Yeats sealed that love of Sligo when he asked to be buried in that magnificent spot in Drumcliffe Churchyard, under the shadow of ‘Bare Ben Bulben’s Head.’
Yeats stands as one of the giants of world literature and, next year, Ireland and the world will celebrate his 150th birthday.
I am honoured to be chair of this great event and to work with so many talented and dedicated people to help place Yeats and the place he loved on the world stage.
The year-long celebrations will be rooted in Sligo and will embrace the world, just
as Yeats himself did. His perpetual love was Sligo but he sought inspiration in the cultures of India, China, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Germany, France and England. He strode the world stage like no other poets or writers of his time. This was a man before the internet, no telephone to speak of, no Transatlantic flights, but he under- stood that the world and all its cultures were fascinating, and he drew from their wells of inspiration to - in turn - inspire a vision for his own nation, for Ireland.
The Yeats2015 programme, funded by the Department of the Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht, will be announced in December. Key events will take place in Sligo, Dublin, Galway and London, the four places that Yeats spent most of his life and had strong links with. Cultural institutions, academic institutions, libraries, festivals, lovers of poetry, artists, poets and musicians will join together to make this a stand-out year; the first time Ireland has dedicated one year to mark one our great writers. In his honour, President Michael D Higgins will be the patron of this special year.
Yeats Day, which launched in Sligo in 2012 to mark his birthday on June 13th will next year be a weekend of celebration with events in many other countries on that day. The LilyLolly CraftFest, honouring Yeats’ sisters Susan (Lily) and Elizabeth (Lolly) will also be celebrated next year. The Yeats Society, which was established in 1957, will have special celebrations too during its 56th Summer School, July 26 to August
7 2015. The Yeats Society has maintained strong links with New York, Korea, Japan and Australia and a new branch will
launch in Budapest next year. The Model will also show some of its great Jack Yeats Nora Niland collection
Yeats’ life spanned two centuries and
in this new century, his work continues to fascinate and influence musicians, poets, academics and writers worldwide. When he received the Nobel Prize in 1923, the Academy cited his capacity to ‘give expres- sion to the spirit of the nation’. The Nobel Academy had understood and articulated Yeats’ driving vision to create and give voice to an Irish identity; a task he never gave up on until his death in France in 1939.
By celebrating and commemorating Yeats next year, we begin the task of ques-
tioning our identity and our Irishness in the 21st century, a journey we will continue through into 2016.
Ireland Chair of Poetry, Paula Meehan, launched Yeats2015 in Sligo on Yeats Day 2014 with the words “Mr Yeats and his work is as a lens through which we see ourselves anew, as a way of championing the imagination in our quest for a more balanced and equitable life in the coming times.”
It is fitting that Yeats will be with us on this journey and it is a fitting tribute to this man whose public contribution matched his literary brilliance.
Senator Susan O’Keeffe is chair, Yeats2015
26 November 2014