W.B Yeats - 150th Anniversary

“We were honoured and delighted that the Irish Ambassador to Britain Mr Dan Mulhall agreed to commemorate with us”.

Luton Irish Forum was proud to deliver a fascinating evening of Irish history with high profile speaker Ambassador Dan Mulhall, Embassy of Ireland.  

2015 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939). The Ambassador marked the occasion by speaking about Yeats’s literary achievement, and in particular about the evolution of his work from the melodic lyrics of the 1880s and 1890s, for which Yeats is widely renowned, to the great modern poems he wrote during the last 20 years of his life. Mr Mulhall reflected on Yeats’s role as an interpreter of the Ireland of his time and as a powerful cultural link between Britain and Ireland today.  On the evening there was a multimedia display of works inspired by Yeats from Cardinal Newman School and local community members. 

W. B. Yeats is one of the foremost figures in modern literature, arguably the finest poet writing in English during the 20th century.  He was a pillar of the literary establishments, in Ireland and in Britain, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923. Together with Lady Gregory, he was the driving force behind Irish literary revival and is credited with writing 402 poems, his most famous works being The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1890), The Tower (1928), Cathleen Ni Houlihan, The Wild Swans at Coole and Easter 1916. 

In his later years, prior to his death in Menton, France in 1939 he served as an Irish Senator and travelled regularly between Ireland and Britain. He is buried in Drumcliffe Churchyard in Co. Sligo, a part of Ireland that was a source of inspiration for him throughout his life.   

Tom Scanlon, Chair of Luton Irish Forum said “We were honoured and delighted that the Irish Ambassador to Britain Mr Dan Mulhall agreed to commemorate with us the life and works of this great poet and scholar at the Luton Irish Forum”.