Though Yeats was born in Sandymount in Dublin in 1865 and spent little of his adult life in the environs of Sligo, the poet himself maintained that Sligo was the domain of his childhood and the landscape of his poetic imaginations for much of his life.

It was in Sligo that the young poet was first moved to explore the mysteries of the Celtic sagas and was inspired and excited by the riches contained within the folk lore and tales that were vividly related to him by the people of Sligo. Though the substance and subject matter of his poetry and other writings were to wander far from this part of the world and to explore other landscapes both real and imaginary, Sligo remained with him throughout his life and in his final poems re-emerged as the spindle in the wheel of his creative and emotional existance as it turned full circle.

Photographs by: Alan Reevell