Join Journey Through Ireland on Saturday October 27 and experience a taste of Sligo. William Butler Yeats called Sligo ‘The Land of Heart’s Desire’ and its beauty, archaeology, and folklore filled his early poetry.
On this trip to Sligo you will rediscover Yeats in a new way. On your tour of Lough Gill discover the exact locations of ‘The Stolen Child’, ‘The Fiddler of Dooney’, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, and ‘The Song of Wandering Aengus’. You will also get a flavour of the Sligo that William Butler Yeats and his siblings knew and loved in the late 19th century, its social structure, ancient sites, and the importance of the Yeats’ mother’s family in all that.
Go on to explore Sligo town and see it through Yeats’ writing and his brother Jack’s visual recordings of the town in the 1890s. You will also see the Yeats Memorial Sculpture erected in 1989 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death and learn exactly why it sits in front of Ulster Bank! After a leisurely lunch, journey out past Lugnagall, and its “vapoured turbanned steep” to wonderful Glencar Valley and the famous waterfall “where the wandering water rushes”.
Then on to Drumcliffe Churchyard where “Yeats is laid” and ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ time. Weather permitting, the trip will finish “far off by furthest Rosses” looking across to Lissadell where “the light of evening” will complete the day. Returning through Sligo you’ll see a little more of the poet’s place of childhood happiness and resolve to re-read the Yeats of the school room in a whole new light.
Pick-up points are in Tullamore, Kilbeggan, and Mullingar. The trip costs€49 per person sharing. Call (046 ) 9555444 to book your place.
