- The Sligo Poems -
 
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Please be patient with the download, it'll be worth your time!
From January 2010, after the copyright has expired, this page will contain the original poems of Yeats.
It's said about Lough Gill that it is located on an ancient city, and that on a clear day you can still see its streets and buildings at the bottom of the lake, as well as its citizens following their daily routines; but beware, hearing their church bells means that you're doomed...
Lough Achree is located in the Ox Mountains, right at the foot of Knockachree; it is said to be one of the numerous fairy portals around Sligo, and to add to the fascination of the place, an eagle was circling high above the mountain as I approached the lake.
At the shore of Lough Gill, in the Millenium Forest, a sculpture pointing towards the island is known as Yeats' Sacred Space.
Slieve Daeane is guarded by three territorial falcons; as soon as I had moved on from the plateau to climb the first peak, they made their presence known by a noisy display of their flying skills. After that didn't scare me away, one of them followed me for three hours, circling high above my head an squawking abuse at me. Only when I started my descent from Lough Lumman did he finally retreat.
The Ballad of Father O'Hart (or The Priest of Colooney)
Coole Park in County Galway used to be the home of Lady Gregory and the centre of the Irish Literary Revival. It covers the Seven Woods Yeats wrote about and stretches along Coole River and Coole Lough.
Many of W. B. Yeats' poems have been inspired by places in and around Sligo. While a good deal of these locations can easily be checked out on the internet, such as Benbulben and Drumcliffe, it seems impossible to find information (let alone images) of others, such as the Hawk's Well and Heart Lake.
With this page I will give his readers the opportunity to visualise the locations that have made their way into literature, though not necessarily onto the map.
Clicking on 
will bring you to a gallery with more images of the same area, including a larger version of the corresponding photograph.
Clicking on will bring you to a price list for prints of the photographs and give you the opportunity to place an order. (Just copy the title of the desired photograph and paste it into the form.)
The Stolen Child
of Sleuth Wood...
In this poem, Yeats takes a child on a scenic tour through County Sligo - starting in Slish Wood (Sleuth Wood) at the shore of Lough Gill, the fairies show the child the beauties of Nature. 
When they travel on, it is night already; they come to the beach at Rosses Point where the fairies lead the child to a dance in the moonlight.
They finally reach the Waterfall at Glencar, just before the lake, where they fish for trout; at this stage it is too late for the child to turn back, and whoever has been to these places will know why... 
over the young streams...
Red Hanrahan's Song about Ireland
This poem is Yeats' hymn to Ireland, personified by Cathleen ni Houlihan - he describes her wild and rugged beauty and her constant struggle using some of the dramatic landscapes around Sligo: Cummeen Strand (Cummen Strand), overclouded Knocknarea with Queen Maeve's Cairn and the House of Clooth-na-Bare on Slieve Daeane, the fairy goddess of longevity who got tired of Life and finally found a lake deep enough to drown herself in; Yeats' Lough Ia is either Lough Dagee (also called Lough Dagea) or Lough Lumman on top of Bird's Mountain (Slieve Daeane). 
The Host of the Air
The Host of the Air sees us away with the fairies again. Here O'Driscoll falls asleep after hunting duck at the 'drear Hart Lake' (also called Heart Lake and commonly known as Lough Achree). The reeds turn into his bride's hair as they are entertained by a host of little people, and all that time a piper is piping away in the distance. She leads him to a group of ancient men with whom he plays cards while his bride is being taken away by one of their young men; he scatters his cards and awakes from his dream, but he still hears the piper playing... 
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Yeats tells us that he got the idea for this poem when looking at the grey pavement in the city and missing the peace of country life.
Innisfree is a tiny island on Lough Gill, a large lake that played a big part in Yeats' life and work.
The Man who dreamed of Faeryland
The hero of this poem gets buried in Dromahair, Lissadell, at the Hawk's Well (the Well of Scanavin) and on the Hill of Lugnagall, but he can't find peace since the fish, the worms and even the grass won't shut up...
the sands of Lisadill
the Well of Scanavin
Hill of Lugnagall
The Song Of Wandering Aengus
I suppose if any man caught a fish and witnessed it turning into a beautiful woman while grilling it would spend the rest of his life looking for her... and the magic area of Hazelwood is just the right setting for a story like this.
at Hazelwood
A Faery Song
As they were on the run from her husband, Diarmait and Grainne (Diarmuid and Grania) are said to have spent the night in the shelter of a cave.
High above the ruins of the Miners' Children's School, the opening of a cave can be seen on Benbulben which is known as Diarmait's (and Grainne's) Bed.
At the Hawk's Well
The Hawk's Well, also called Tubber Scanavin, can be found on top of Tullaghan Hill near Coolaney. Like every well in Ireland, it is attributed to St Patrick, and even though the Ox Mountains stretch between the well and the sea, its water level rises and falls with the tide.
The Hosting of the Sidhe
Here Yeats recounts the story of Cailleach na Béara (whom he calls Clooth-na-Bare), a woman of the Sidhe who gets tired of her fairy life and finally finds a lake on top of Bird's Mountain (Slieve Daeane) which is deep enough to drown herself in; it is generally accepted that Yeats' Lough Ia is Lough Dagee (or Lough Dagea), but since it is even higher up the mountain, I think he might be referring to Lough Lumman.
The Fiddler of Dooney
Today Dooney doesn't have much of a community, apart from a few houses located around Dooney Rock at Lough Gill.
The fiddler's brother and cousin are priests in Kilvarnet and Maugheraboy (Moharabuiee); the estate of Maugheraboy is now part of Sligo town, while Kilvarnet is located a few miles from Ballymote. Ironically, the altar of its ruined church was apparently designed to point at Sligo's predominant pagan landmark, Queen Maeve's Cairn on top of Knocknarea.
Father O'Hart of Collooney, a small town and parish just South of Sligo, has always been friendly - to the birds, that is, and when he dies, it is the birds only who attend his funeral.
And they come from all over the country: from Knocknarea, from Knocknashee (a hill with a fort, supposedly inhabited by - you guessed it - fairies, and the setting of the film Darby O'Gill and the Little People with Sean Connery), from the barony of Tiraragh (or Tireragh, which covers the area West of Sligo Town to Killala Bay, including Carrowmore with its megalithic cemetery, the main part of the Ox Mountains, and the beaches of Aughris Head, Enniscrone and Easkey); from Ballinafad at the Southern tip of Lough Arrow and from Inishmurray, an island just off the Sligo coast which served as a major monastic settlement.
The Wild Swans at Coole
In the Seven Woods
Since Yeats took his last count, the wild swans of Coole have indeed flown away – when I visited the lake, I found two swan’s feathers in the woods, but there was no sign of their owners at all.
In the Walled Garden stands the Autograph Tree into whose bark many Irish writers cut their initials, including Yeats himself.
In Memory Of Eva Gore-Booth And Con Markiewicz
Yeats was a friend of the Gore-Booth Family residing in Lissadell. He was fascinated with their daughters Eva and Constance (who later married an impoverished Polish Count), but he seemingly felt a little estranged by their dedication to their political aims: Eva was a suffragette, and Constance was the only woman sentenced to death (but pardoned) for her involvement in the 1916 Rising. A monument in Rathcormack commemorates her part in the struggle for Irish independence. 
Under Ben Bulben
Yeats wrote his epitaph just a few months before he died, and the last stanza of the poem, expressing his wish to be buried in Drumcliffe, are doubtlessly his most quoted lines.
(Yeats' Grave)
(Yeats' Grave)
Elsinore Lodge
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Elsinore Lodge was the seat of the Middleton Family where the Yeats brothers spent many a summer with their cousins. The house was built by the pirate captain John Black (Black Jack), and it is still said to be haunted by him (he supposedly knocks at the window pane three times, which should prove quite difficult at this stage). The house has fallen into disrepair, and even though plans to restore it emerge in the press every now and then, nothing has been done so far.
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© Frank L. Ludwig
Did I miss anything? If you would like to see a location I haven't covered on this page, feel free to contact me at
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Yeats Facing His Memorial Building
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