To mark the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize award, the current Cathaoirleach, Senator Jerry Buttimer, hosted a special event in the Seanad Chamber in Leinster House.
One hundred years ago, on November 14th, WB Yeats became the first Irish person to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
As part of the official Decade of Centenaries, local libraries across Ireland will share the news, and the story, with the next generation of Ireland’s writers and poets – and all who feel inspired by the global poet, Yeats This event is part of the Official Decade of Centenaries.
Our library kit will include:
Speaking about the centenary events series, the Director of the National Library of Ireland, Audrey Whitty said
“This wonderful endeavour by the Yeats Society, Sligo to mark the day (14 November 1923) W.B. Yeats heard he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature is a momentous commemorative way of gifting to libraries across the country a record of that occasion 100 years ago.
Libraries, and particularly the National Library of Ireland (NLI) was central to W.B. Yeats’ work and ethos, so much so that when he died in 1939 thanks to the extraordinary generosity of the poet’s wife and children, his manuscripts became part of the National Library’s collections. His family chose to continue WB Yeats’ own tradition of contributing to the life of the nation, and to reflect in so doing his longstanding relationship with not just the National Library, but the importance of libraries everywhere as vehicles of access, free expression and thought.”
Image Credit: James Connolly
Image left to right: Fionn Deasy, Saoirse McMorrow, Siún and Moss Deasy
The Hyde Bridge Gallery invites proposals for the 2024 Exhibition Programme.
Applications from emerging artists, curators, collectives and arts organisations, for solo or group shows are welcome. Applications are invited from emerging artists and amateur artists working in various media/disciplines. Any work by amateur/emerging artists should have developmental potential towards a professional career.
The closing date for applications is: Monday Dec 4th
Artists will be notified with the results a month later.
Please submit by email to: hydebridgegallery@gmail.com
Download Open Call Application Form
The closing date for applications is Monday 4th December 2023.
Late applications will not be accepted.
Due to unfortunate funding restraints the Gallery must charge a fee for exhibitions.
This year’s exhibition fee will be €420 per show with a further 10% commission due on sales. Rental fees charged go towards the day to day running of the gallery.
Artists are required to install and take down their own work. Programme planning, curation and assistance is carried out by gallery committee members who are working artists, volunteering to support the work of the gallery.
Exhibition period is 3- 4 weeks which includes time for installation and take down.
Enquiries tel: 071 9142693 or email: hydebridgegallery@gmail.com
The Nora Niland lecture is hosted annually by Yeats Society Sligo as part of the Yeats Day celebrations, on the poet’s birthday, June 13th.
Nora was a founding member of Yeats Society Sligo in 1960. She worked tirelessly on behalf of the people of Sligo to extend and grow the cultural realm, particularly in her efforts to acquire a unique collection of Irish art. Her foresight delivered a unique collection of paintings, held in trust at The Model, Sligo.
The annual talk marks her contribution and her generosity and the impact she made on Sligo culture.
The 2023 talk was delivered by Eily Kilgannon, who has had a lifelong love of the work of WB Yeats. Among many things, Eily has delivered drama classes to young people for many years, sharing her love of culture, poetry and drama with so many young people from Sligo and beyond.
Yeats Society Sligo would like to thank the crew and cast of Purgatory for the great performance at the Old Rectory on September 2023.
Sara Berkely has been awarded the first annual Yeats Poetry Prize for her latest collection, The Last Cold Days, by the Yeats Society Sligo.
The winner of the inaugural Poetry Prize was announced at the opening of this year’s Yeats International Summer School on Thursday July 27th July. The inaugural Poetry Prize is a collaboration between the Society and Irish Independent/Mediahus Group. The Prize recognises the single best collection of work by an Irish poet in 2022.
Judges Lucy Collins, Nick Laird and Bernard O’Donoghue issued their shortlist on June 13th, Yeats Day:
Sara Berkeley: Gallery Press, The Last Cold Day
Tom French: Gallery Press, In Company
Vona Groarke: New York University Press, Hereafter
John Kelly: Dedalus Press, Space
Rosamund Taylor: Banshee Press, In her Jaws
Jessica Traynor: Bloodaxe Press, Pit Lullabies
Chair of Yeats Society Sligo Lorraine McDonnell thanked Irish Independent for its support and said this Prize is especially important in this year of the Nobel Centenary of WB Yeats, the first Irish person to receive the award.
“Supporting and recognising the value of poetry in our world is dear to our hearts, and we are delighted to be involved with The Poetry Prize.”
Other speakers at the 64th Yeats International School included Claire Keegan and Manchán Magan, poet Victoria Kennefick, Vona Groarke, John McAuliffe and Sean Lysaght. Academics include: Seán Hewitt, (TCD) Adam Hanna, (UCC) Jahan Ramazani (University of Virginia), and Nessa Cronin (UofGalway). Co-directors are Charles Armstrong (University of Adger) and Lucy Collins (UCD).
Sara Berkeley was born in Dublin in 1967 and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Raven Arts Press published her first collection, Penn, in 1986. Since then she has published Home Movie Nights (poems, 1989), The Swimmer in the Deep Blue Dream (stories, 1992), Facts about Water (new and selected poems, 1994) and Shadowing Hannah (a novel, 1999).
The Gallery Press has published her recent poetry collections, Strawberry Thief (2005), The View from Here (2010), What Just Happened (2015) and The Last Cold Day which was published on 3 October 2022.
The Last Cold DayPoems in Sara Berkeley’s fourth Gallery book, The Last Cold Day, are alert to climate threat, conjuring memories of fires sending up ‘their smoky prayers’ and ‘the ice [that] sings its long last song, / a requiem.’
The Last Cold Day charts a move across America, from California to New York’s Hudson Valley, from one climate to four seasons. It records the author’s life in the frontlines of the epidemic, the lessons of the dying and the life that goes on. In poems praised by Dermot Bolger for their ‘poise and sharply minted clarity’ Sara Berkeley records a return visit to her native Ireland as well as a new love and marriage.
Tourism Minister Catherine Martin launched our Events Programme to mark the Centenary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature, to WB Yeats in 1923.
We are delighted that Victoria Kennefick will continue her ‘poet in residence’ with us until April 2024. We are especially pleased that she will also take part in our Yeats Nobel Centenary celebrations later this year.
Victoria read at our recent Poetry Day Ireland event, celebrating the strong and vibrant tradition of poetry across the island of Ireland. We were also delighted to welcome her guest, emerging poet Joe Carrick-Varty and to be supported by Poetry Ireland.
Victoria will present a creative poetry workshop at this year’s Yeats International Summer School and will also read at the School.
She is the current UCD Writer in Residence and her new, and much anticipated, collection will be published in 2024.
OCTOBER 20 2021 PRESS RELEASE
Yeats Society Sligo is delighted to announce generous funding from the London-based T.S. Eliot Foundation. The funding association will run for five years 2022-2027 and totals £125,000.
The T.S. Eliot Foundation celebrates the life and work of T.S. Eliot, the American poet, who became a British citizen and spent most of his life in London. Eliot and Yeats were associates, whose lives criss-crossed in poetry and plays and both were significant in the growth of modernist poetry in the 20th century.
Eliot was a prolific poet and playwright. His best-known works include “Four Quartets” and “The Waste Land” and his lighter poetry collection Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. His work as publisher with Faber and Faber ensured that it published many distinguished poets, a tradition that has endured. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.
T.S. Eliot was invited to deliver the first annual Yeats Lecture at the Abbey Theatre – set up in June 1940 – one year after the death of WB Yeats in the south of France. In this he discussed the influence of Yeats on poetry and on his own work and said: “the influence of which I speak is due to the figure of the poet himself, to the integrity of his passion for his art and his craft which provided such an impulse for his extraordinary development.”
Chair of Yeats Society Sligo Chris Gonley said: “We express our gratitude to the T.S. Eliot Foundation for their generous support at this time, allowing us to continue to pursue our work. We are delighted to form this association with the Foundation and to acknowledge the work they do in keeping alive the work of T.S. Eliot and in supporting many literary and cultural organisations.” Trustee of the TS Eliot Estate Clare Reihill said: The T S Eliot Foundation is delighted to support the further understanding of the work of this continuingly vital poet.’
For further information:
Susan O’Keeffe, Director, Yeats Society Sligo;
00 353 851314084 or director@yeatssocietysligo
Funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development.
