Poet was a shy man who believed in fairies

Yeats Summer School: When the poet Brendan Kennelly was a boy and staying with an aunt in north Sligo, he asked a man working in Ballintrillick creamery to tell him who Yeats was. "He was a wonderful man," the nine-year-old was told. "He was a very shy Dublin Protestant who believed in the fairies."

Still fascinated by W.B. Yeats, Prof Kennelly was back in Sligo yesterday to open the 45th annual Yeats International Summer School.

The small boy is himself a renowned poet now and as the 120 or so students attending this year's summer school were told, he is the only living poet to have the distinction of having a summer school in his honour.

The Brendan Kennelly summer school, which takes place this week in Ballylongford, Co Kerry, coincides with the Yeats school. In his salute yesterday, Kerry-born Kennelly admitted he has "never fully understood" Yeats.

Far from being a disadvantage, however, this meant he could read his work "a thousand times" and still make new discoveries.

Prof Kennelly said he agreed with the man in Ballintrillick who described Yeats as shy, adding that this shyness was a crucial part of Yeats because, like a lot of shy people, he was a warrior. Yeats was also pilgrim, he added, a journeyman, a lover of music who, being shy, would not sing himself, but whose early work contained many references to song and singing.

Yeats's interest in magic and myths was commented on by Sligo mayor, Mr Declan Bree, who pointed out that, while he was born in Dublin, it was Sligo and the surrounding areas which provided the inspiration for some of Yeats' best loved work. "It is almost an historical anachronism that W. B. Yeats wasn't born here, such is the indelible association between this county and the Yeats family," the former Labour TD for Sligo/Leitrim said.

Among those who will attend this year's two-week summer school are Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, who has joined the academic board of the Yeats Summer School, Whitbread winner Bernard O'Donoghue, Richard Murphy, Colm Tóibín, Senator David Norris, Pulitzer winner Jorie Graham and Yeats biographer Prof Roy Foster.

Prof Helen Vendler, the Harvard academic who nominated Seamus Heaney for the Nobel prize, has returned, having first attended in 1972. She recalled that the first time she heard of Seamus Heaney was when he read at the Yeats Summer School in 1975.

Students and lecturers last night attended a reception at Lissadell House.