Tickets could not be obtained for love or money yesterday to the inaugural event of the Yeats Summer Festival, two weeks of cultural events put on to accompany the more academic day-time activities of the Yeats Summer School.
This is the first year of the festival, and it opened last night with a poetry reading from Seamus Heaney. It continues tonight with music from the traditional group Buttons and Bows, and later in the fortnight the Hawk's Well theatre will host more music, Donal O'Kelly's one-man play Catalpa, poet John Montague, and a performance of Yeats's play Calvary by students of the school.
Lunchtimes will see a variety of other activities, starting with an illustrated lecture from the curator of Irish art in the National Gallery, Dr Sighle Bhreathnach-Lynch, on the work of Irish artists from the 1880s to the 1930s, with special emphasis on Paul Henry, Sean Keating and Jack B.Yeats. Like the poetry of Yeats, their work did much to construct the image of the west of Ireland as a rural utopia, Dr Bhreathnach-Lynch said.
These activities are supported by Sligo Institute of Technology, which has increased its involvement in the school over recent years. They are all part of the policy of the committee of the Yeats Society of broadening the summer school beyond academic discussion of the poet's life and work to include various aspects of contemporary culture. Committee member John Kavanagh told The Irish Times that they would like to see writers, artists, film-makers and dramatists drop into the school for a few days to, perhaps, hear a lecture or a performance which interested them, and to participate in the discussions and socialising which are part of it.
The work of the Yeats Society does not end with the summer school. Its purpose is "to perpetuate the artistic heritage of the Yeats family", and this has been greatly facilitated by the gift, some years ago, of a building in the middle of the town by AIB. This is now the Yeats Memorial Building, hosting not only the administration of the society but an art gallery and, just opened, a cafe.