Call to protect WB Yeats’ historic home at Thoor Ballylee

Internationally renowned historian and WB Yeats biographer, Roy Foster, has called on the State and local government to provide legislation to protect the poet’s home, Thoor Ballylee, near Gort.

The historic tower house, which inspired some of the Nobel prize-winning poet’s most critically acclaimed writings, “deserves to be celebrated and appreciated and preserved on a national scale”, Professor Foster stated in Galway at the weekend.

“In cultural terms, it is, as Seamus Heaney said, the most important building in Ireland,” he told listeners at his First Thought Talk, which was held at NUIG as part of Galway International Arts Festival.

The theme of this year’s First Thought Talks is ‘Home’. While Thoor Ballylee was home to the Yeats family during the 1920s, it was “also a central location of Irish culture, an essential part of our heritage,” stressed Professor Foster, who is Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and Professor of Irish History and Literature and Queen Mary University of London.

However, he added, “we’re a bit hit and miss when it comes to guarding or defending our heritage, or even defining it except in a loose or touchy feely way”.

In 2002, Professor Foster was one of a group, including An Taisce and the Irish Georgian Society, which successfully appealed Galway County Council’s decision to grant planning approval for a private dwelling house less than 100 metres from Thoor Ballylee. He had been alerted to the decision by California-based Yeats scholar, Linda Satchwell, who was also an appellant, as was architect Paul Keogh.

An Bord Pleanála upheld their appeal, saying such a dwelling “would detract from the literary interest, character, heritage and value of the national monument”.

Ireland West Tourism (now Fáilte Ireland) had also opposed the original application, but the State’s then-heritage body Dúchas had refused to contest it, on the basis that there was no archaeological significance attached to the site, Professor Foster explained.

Since the 1960s, Thoor Ballylee has been “saved and is maintained by local zeal and voluntary help from passionate Yeatsians as well as support from tourist authorities”, Dr Foster told his audience. These included American Joe Hassett, who helped with its reopening in 2015, after a series of floods, followed by the recession had left it closed for many years.

But although it’s up and running now, “the structures aren’t there to safeguard a building like TB effectively” he stressed.

“There is no remit to protect so-called one-stop development process or the prioritising of road schemes often paid for by property companies.”

Buildings like Thoor Ballylee carry a certain historical baggage in Ireland, he added, because of their association with the Anglo-Irish. But he gave credit to the Office of Public Works for its role in helping Ireland accept and embrace “the great building heritage of the 18th and 19th centuries”.

Thoor Ballylee predates that heritage, with historians stating that it possibly dates from the 14th century.

Yeats and his young wife, George Hyde Lees bought Thoor Ballylee in 1916 and set about restoring it, a process which took years and involved local craftspeople.

By 1928, the poet’s ill health meant it was no longer practical for the family to use the tower which was often damp and regularly flooded. But it inspired the renowned poem Prayer for My Daughter as well The Tower (1928), which was Yeats’ first major collection after winning the Nobel Prize. It also gave the title to 1933’s collection The Winding Stair.

While Thoor Ballylee is currently open, Professor Foster cautioned people that there was no room for complacency.

“The tower continues to suffer the vicissitudes of weather and uncertain funding,” he said.

The Galway International Arts Festival First Thought Talk series continues at NUIG this weekend. More information at giaf.ie

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