On the 150th anniversary of W.B. Yeats’s birth we look at some of the places in Sligo that inspired his best-loved poems. 1. BENBULBEN and DRUMCLIFFE CHURCHYARD: At his request, Yeats’s body was laid to rest in France and later removed to the churchyard in Drumcliffe, under Ben Bulben mountain, where his great-grand- father had served as rector. St. Columba founded a … [Read more...] about 150 Years of Yeats’s Sligo
The Rebel Countess
Rosemary Rogers, continuing her series on Irish women of note, profiles Constance Georgine Gore-Booth, the social agitator and revolutionary who took part in the Easter Rising of 1916. Revolutionaries are, almost by definition, romantic – what else could explain the fact that the iconic image of Che Guevara (whose Grandma Lynch, incidentally, was from Galway’s Lynch tribe) is … [Read more...] about The Rebel Countess
The Willis Family
The Willis Clan have carved out quite the reputation for their musical skills and now have a new reality TV show on TLC. There is a moment during a Willis Clan performance when the stage lights seem to go away and you’re swept into that ancient time and place where Irish music and dance were born as rituals that could bind a community together, banish fear and lift sorrow by … [Read more...] about The Willis Family
A Challenging Woman: Remembering Inez McCormack
Inez McCormack, the late labor leader and human rights activist from Northern Ireland, once said that her greatest achievement was “seeing the glint in the eye of the woman who thought she was nobody, and now realizes she’s somebody.” McCormack would have had a glint in her own eye had she witnessed the turnout for a recent screening of a documentary on her life in … [Read more...] about A Challenging Woman: Remembering Inez McCormack
What Would Jimmy Do? “Jimmy’s Hall” at Tribeca
In August 1933, James Gralton became the only Irish citizen to have been deported from Ireland. Despite having no evidence to substantiate their charge that he was a subversive communist, de Valera’s government, in collusion with the Catholic Church and complacent county politicians, forcibly removed Gralton from his country without trial. He never returned and died 12 years … [Read more...] about What Would Jimmy Do? “Jimmy’s Hall” at Tribeca