Episodes

  • S1 Ep9: D1 YC Parkes Castle and Wild Rose waterbus

    S1 Ep9: D1 YC Parkes Castle and Wild Rose waterbus
    Aug 11 2022
    Non Yeats POI: Parkes Castle. GPS location 54.264611, -8.33396 

    A restored plantation castle of the early 17th century, picturesquely situated on the shores of Lough Gill, once the home of Robert Parke and his family. The Courtyard grounds contain evidence of an earlier 16th century Tower House structure once owned by Sir Brian O'Rourke who subsequently was executed at Tyburn, London in 1591. The Castle has been restored using Irish oak and traditional craftsmanship. Access for visitors with disabilities to ground floor. 

    Next to the castle is the Wild Rose waterbus which takes you out on Lough Gill. George McGoldrick is your affable host on this one hour trip. It sails daily at 12.30, 3.30, 4.30 and 6.30, but check in advance lest there be a change of plan - Mobile:+353872598869

    Opening Hours:
    9th April - 30th Sept: Daily 10.00 - 18.00
    Last admission 45 minutes before closing  
    Average Length of Visit:  1 Hour

    DIRECTIONS: This is the last proper stop off on Day One of the tour. If heading back in to Sligo, take a left after the car park and we'll have some poetry for you along the way.
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  • S1 Ep8: D1 YC Dromahair

    S1 Ep8: D1 YC Dromahair
    Aug 11 2022
    Non Yeats P.O.I. Dromahair. GPS location 54.220799, -8.297467

    Dromahair lies in the hilly north west of Leitrim amid some stunning unspoiled natural landscapes. The "Sleeping Giant" mountain formation (comprising Keelogyboy, Leean and Benbo) is visible on approaches to the village, as is Lough Gill below the Slieve Dae?ne and Killerry mountain.

    The village itself is also idyllic, located on the banks of the River Bonet, which flows into Lough Gill. Much of Dromahair was modelled on a village in Somerset by the Earl of Leitrim, and the central streetscape still follows the pattern set down by him.

    Looking for a good lunch before getting the waterbus in the afternoon? Try the The Riverbank Restaurant. Stay on the R287 by taking a right coming into Dromahair - the restaurant is on the left and is marked on the map. It has a full licence and is open from Friday to Sunday. Evening meals are from 6.30 pm to 10 pm and Sunday Lunch from 12.30 to 3.00 pm.Bar Food is Served, daily from 12.30 to 9pm

    The poem Sean quotes in the audio piece is from Yeats's 1893 collection, The Rose: -

    The Man Who Dreamed Of Faeryland

    He stood among a crowd at Dromahair;
    His heart hung all upon a silken dress,
    And he had known at last some tenderness,
    Before earth took him to her stony care;
    But when a man poured fish into a pile,
    It Seemed they raised their little silver heads,
    And sang what gold morning or evening sheds
    Upon a woven world-forgotten isle
    Where people love beside the ravelled seas;
    That Time can never mar a lover's vows
    Under that woven changeless roof of boughs:
    The singing shook him out of his new ease.
    He wandered by the sands of Lissadell;
    His mind ran all on money cares and fears,
    And he had known at last some prudent years
    Before they heaped his grave under the hill;
    But while he passed before a plashy place,
    A lug-worm with its grey and muddy mouth
    Sang that somewhere to north or west or south
    There dwelt a gay, exulting, gentle race
    Under the golden or the silver skies;
    That if a dancer stayed his hungry foot
    It seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit:
    And at that singing he was no more wise.
    He mused beside the well of Scanavin,
    He mused upon his mockers: without fail
    His sudden vengeance were a country tale,
    When earthy night had drunk his body in;
    But one small knot-grass growing by the pool
    Sang where - unnecessary cruel voice -
    Old silence bids its chosen race rejoice,
    Whatever ravelled waters rise and fall
    Or stormy silver fret the gold of day,
    And midnight there enfold them like a fleece
    And lover there by lover be at peace.
    The tale drove his fine angry mood away.
    He slept under the hill of Lugnagall;
    And might have known at last unhaunted sleep
    Under that cold and vapour-turbaned steep,
    Now that the earth had taken man and all:
    Did not the worms that spired about his bones
    proclaim with that unwearied, reedy cry
    That God has laid His fingers on the sky,
    That from those fingers glittering summer runs
    Upon the dancer by the dreamless wave.
    Why should those lovers that no lovers miss
    Dream, until God burn Nature with a kiss?
    The man has found no comfort in the grave.
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  • S1: Welcome to Yeats Country

    S1: Welcome to Yeats Country
    Aug 11 2022
    Tour curator John Ward welcomes listeners about to embark on a range of sites that inspired a young Yeats to conjure up his Celtic Twilight. All of the well-known sites, plus a few non-Yeats treats are included culminating in a visit to Yeats's grave at Drumcliffe. 

    Please see the dedicated Yeats page https://www.racontour.com/yeats/ which has an overview of what the ful tour entails including pointers on the planning of the route over three days. To really get the most out of this guide though, you need to listen to it on our Yeats Country Guide playlist on Spotify where the stories are combined with songs: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7MFBdeOsoiScwyxo0zVty9?si=98c7331a3bad4451

    Assuming you are doing so, after this audio piece, we have The Waterboy's epic version of a Celtic Twilight poem from the 1899 collection, The Wind amongst the Reeds: -

    The Hosting Of The Sidhe

    The host is riding from Knocknarea
    And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;
    Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
    And Niamh calling Away, come away:
    Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
    The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
    Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
    Our breasts are heaving our eyes are agleam,
    Our arms are waving our lips are apart;
    And if any gaze on our rushing band,
    We come between him and the deed of his hand,
    We come between him and the hope of his heart.
    The host is rushing 'twixt night and day,
    And where is there hope or deed as fair?
    Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
    And Niamh calling Away, come away.

    You'll have noticed Mick changed some of the lines around, but if someone is going to tamper with the master, let it be Mick! Besides, it was artistic licence. we love how he turned the opening lines into the chorus. It also made for the most perfect opening track as we ask you to come away with us on our epic tour of Yeats Country. 

     An Appointment with Mr Yeats, the Waterboys album of WB Yeats poems-become-songs first released in 2011, was recently remixed and remastered with six previously unreleased bonus tracks. It was released in late May 2022. Highlights of it feature throughout the playlist, including Steve Wickham's rendering of Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites which features straight after a visit to Connolly's where Parnell had been in Sligo. 

    Says Mike Scott: "I remixed the Yeats album during the 2020 lockdown, using all the skills I picked up while making the last several Waterboys records. Then it was mastered by my colleague Don Jackson. I'm thrilled with how it's come out. Not distractingly different, but fuller and richer, more powerful." No word of a lie, Mike!
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    Less than 1 minute
  • S2 Ep9: D2 YC Rosses Point

    S2 Ep9: D2 YC Rosses Point
    May 25 2022
    Rosses Point
    GPS Location: 54.304105, -8.561783 


    Yeats loved Rosses Point and first experimented with the paranormal here, encouraged by his cousin's housekeeper who had the ˜second sight'. Today excellent restaurants and pubs meet all your needs, even if they can't predict your future! Yeats stayed at Elsinore House when he was in Rosses Point. It is now a ruin and is just below the statue in the picture above on the way to the pier. There's talk every few years of doing up the derelict site, but as you'll see, nothing has happened!

    DIRECTIONS: After Rosses Point, make your way back to Sligo Town. In town, we have listed the key Yeats sites you may wish to visit.
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    1 min
  • S2 Ep8: D2 YC Rathcormack

    S2 Ep8: D2 YC Rathcormack
    May 25 2022
    Rathcormack
    GPS Location: 54.31955, -8.48289

    Rathcormack is a small village at the base of a valley. You may wish to take note of an art installation honouring Countess Markievicz by the roadside. Rising on a brae from it towards Sligo, get ready to turn right at the top of the brae for Rosses Point - it is signposted although, please note the sign is for Kintogher.

    Directions - get to Rosses Point via Google Maps ensuring you take the right turn off at the top of the brae and NOT be taken into town only to double back!
    GPS Location: 54.304105, -8.561783 
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    1 min
  • S2 Ep7: D2 YC Yeats's Grave

    S2 Ep7: D2 YC Yeats's Grave
    May 25 2022
    Location: Yeat's Grave, Drumcliffe

    Yeats's grave is marked in front of you with Ben Bulben visible through the cemetery trees. If the church is open, ensure you pay it a visit. If the excellent booklet by Derick Bingham entitled 'The Eye of the Heart' is still in print, it's well worth a read.

    The resting place of Ireland's greatest poet, William Butler Yeats, is as near perfect a location as you'd expect for such an evocative wordsmith. In the final two stanzas of Under Ben Bulben, Yeats declared: -

    Irish poets, learn your trade, Sing whatever is well made,
    Scorn the sort now growing up All out of shape from toe to top,
    Their unremembering hearts and heads Base-born products of base beds.
    Sing the peasantry, and then Hard-riding country gentlemen,
    The holiness of monks, and after Porter-drinkers' randy laughter;
     Sing the lords and ladies gay That were beaten into clay
    Through seven heroic centuries; Cast your mind on other days
    That we in coming days may be Still the indomitable Irishry.

    Under bare Ben Bulben's head In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
    An ancestor was rector there Long years ago, a church stands near,
    By the road an ancient cross. No marble, no conventional phrase;
    On limestone quarried near the spot By his command these words are cut:
    Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!

    DIRECTIONS: We'll be turning left on to the N15 coming out of the car park and heading towards Rosses' Point via Rathcormack village.
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    1 min
  • S2 Ep6: D2 YC Drumcliffe

    S2 Ep6: D2 YC Drumcliffe
    May 25 2022
    Drumcliffe   GPS Location: 54.325334, -8.493741   

    You are now in the village of Drumcliffe, firmly put on the map when W.B. Yeats was interred here some nine years after his death in France in January 1939. After a long and somber route back from Roquebrune where it lay in state both there and in Sligo Town, he was laid to rest as per his instructions in "Under Ben Bulben". In an ironic twist, the Government was represented by its Minister for External Affairs, Mr. Sean McBride, son of Maud Gonne.

    Hear more about the return from RTÉ Radio's John Bowman Sunday archive show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaNplPvSbx4
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    1 min
  • S2 Ep5: D2 YC Lissadell House

    S2 Ep5: D2 YC Lissadell House
    May 25 2022
    Lissadell House
    GPS Location: 54.344031, -8.57777

    Please note that Lissadell House has a limited opening season.  Best to check the Lissadell website when planning your visit closer to the time. 

    One of the great coups for Lissadell is getting Leonard Cohen to play here in 2010. Thw riter was lucky enough to see the show and it was magnificent hearing him sing - and also quote Yeats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5vYpWCbHsE 

    Lissadell is famous as the childhood home of Constance Markievicz, one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising; the first woman to be elected to Dáil Eireann, where she served as Minister for Labour, and also the first woman to be elected to Westminster Parliament in London.Her brother Josslyn created at Lissadell one of the premier horticultural estates in Europe. Yeats was friendly with the Gore Booths, and has immortalised Lissadell in his poetry. 

    In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz 

    The light of evening, Lissadell,
    Great windows open to the south,
    Two girls in silk kimonos, both
    Beautiful, one a gazelle.
    But a raving autumn shears
    Blossom from the summer's wreath;
    The older is condemned to death,
    Pardoned, drags out lonely years
    Conspiring among the ignorant.
    I know not what the younger dreams –
    Some vague Utopia – and she seems,
    When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
    An image of such politics.
    Many a time I think to seek
    One or the other out and speak
    Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
    Pictures of the mind, recall
    That table and the talk of youth,
    Two girls in silk kimonos, both
    Beautiful, one a gazelle.

    Dear shadows, now you know it all,
    All the folly of a fight
    With a common wrong or right.
    The innocent and the beautiful
    Have no enemy but time;
    Arise and bid me strike a match
    And strike another till time catch;
    Should the conflagration climb,
    Run till all the sages know.
    We the great gazebo built,
    They convicted us of guilt;
    Bid me strike a match and blow.

     DIRECTIONS: After here, you'll be making your way back to Drumcliffe on the N15. Want to be brought to the car park of Drumcliffe church via Google Maps? Use these coordinates: 54.325334, -8.493741
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    2 mins