Radford University Study Abroad Program
Dr. Jolanta Wawrzycka
European Literary Trails
Bliss Mulligan's Web Site 2003
Thoor Ballylee & Coole Park
Thoor Ballylee is the Irish word for "tower". In 1916, W.B. Yeats bought Thoor Ballylee and attached a small cottage to the side of it. For most of the 1920's Thoor Ballylee was the summer home for Yeats. Yeats was a frequent visitor to Coole Park where his friend, Lady Gregory, resided. It was with Lady Gregory who Yeats co- founded the Abbey Theatre. The Tower (1928) has many poems that were inspired by Thoor Ballylee.
Meditations in Time of Civil War
II
My House
An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable,
The sound of the rain or sound,
Of every wind that blows;
The stilted water-hen
Crossing stream again
Scared by the splashing of a dozen cows;
A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and written page.
Il Penseroso's Plantonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the daemonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Have seen his midnight candle glimmering.
Two men have founded here. A man-at-arms
Gathered a score of horse and spent his days
In this tumultuous spot,
Where through long wars and sudden night alarms
His dwindling score and he seemed castaways
Forgetting and forgot;
And I, that after me
My bodily heirs may find,
To exalt a lonely mind,
Befitting emblems of adversity.
Being at Thoor Ballylee, I could actually imagine Yeats living there and writing this poem, as well as the many others. Thoor Ballylee would be a great place to live and write poetry with it being so secluded and peaceful. We all sat on "an ancient bridge" and looked at "a more ancient tower." We were there too early in the season so the tower was not open for tours, but it usually is during the later summer months.
Coole Park
Coole Park was once the home of Lady Gregory. The house that Lady Gregory and her husband, Sir William, lived in was demolished in the 1950's and all that remains is an open grass area where one can imagine the house that was once was there.
The Wild Swans at Coole (1917)
THE trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied sill, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have all flown away?
When we arrived at Coole Park we had lunch (I had the usual brown bread and vegetable soup). Once we were finished we began walking around Coole. We saw the plot of land where Lady Gregory's house once stood and we saw the Autograph Tree. The Autograph Tree is a huge tree that Lady Gregory had the important people who came to visit her carve their name in. There were signatures on it from WB Yeats, Jack Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and many others. After we looked at the Autograph Tree we separated and leisurely walked around Coole. The park is huge and I felt like I hardly saw any of it. I walked to the lake that Yeats describes, "Under the brimming water among the stones/ Are nine-and-fifty swans." I learned that swans mate for life and so the nine-and-fifty swans is significant because it leaves one swan out that does not have a mate. Does Yeats feel like he is able to relate to this swan with the woman whom he loves,, Maud Gonne, being married to someone else? It seems like the swans are a constant in his life. He knows that he could come back even after "the nineteenth autumn has come upon me", and the swans would still be there. He begins to wonder though if one day he will come back to the lake "To find they have flown away."
Deanna, Kelin, Me, Eric