Thoor Ballylee
| Thoor Ballylee | ||
|---|---|---|
.jpg) Thoor Ballylee |
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| Alternative name (s): | Túr Bhaile Uí Laí | |
| Creation time : | 15th or 16th century | |
| Castle type : | Niederungsburg (Tower House) | |
| Conservation status: | restored | |
| Standing position : | Irish nobility | |
| Construction: | Quarry stone | |
| Place: | Gort | |
| Geographical location | 53 ° 6 '11.2 " N , 8 ° 46' 30.7" W | |
| Height: | 18 m | |
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Thoor Ballylee ( Irish Túr Bhaile Uí LAI ) is a Hiberno-Norman Tower House that the Burkes or De Burgos in the 15th or 16th century near Gort in Ireland's County Galway could build. It is also called Yeats' Tower because it once belonged to William Butler Yeats .
history
The castle was built around 1600 and the property was once part of the vast estates of the Earls of Clanricarde .
The nearby four-arch bridge was built around 1825. It is recorded that the Carrig family lived in the castle in 1837 . At the time of Griffith's Valuation (1857), Patrick Carrick had leased a keeper's house, the castle and land at Ballylee, Baroant Kiltartan , from William Henry Gregory . At the time the property was valued at £ 5.
In the early 20th century, Tower House was still owned by the Gregorys and became part of the nearby Coole Estate where Lady Augusta Gergory , Yeats' lifelong friend, lived. On the estate, Coole House , where Lady Gregory lived, was the center of meetings for the Irish Literature Group, a group made up of a large number of eminent people of the time. The Irish Literary Revival began near this Tower House in Coole Park .
Thoor Ballylee Castle was also called "Yeats' Tower" because Yeats bought the property in 1916 or 1917 for the symbolic price of £ 35 because he liked it that way, especially because it was in a rural area. Yeats and his family lived there from 1921 to 1929; it was his monument and symbol: in both respects it fulfilled his wish for a rooted place in the country. The Tower House kept its original windows in the upper part. Yeats and his architect, Professor `` William A. Scott '', restored the Tower House over the next two years and had larger windows installed on the lower floors.
Since Yeats had a weakness for the Irish language, he dropped the name "Castle" and replaced it with "Thoor" ( Túr is the Irish Gaelic word for "tower"), so that the property was called "Thoor Ballylee". For 12 years, Thoor Ballylee was Yeats's summer home and country retreat. In a letter to a friend he wrote: "Everything is so beautiful that it would be leaving beauty behind if you went somewhere else." So it is no wonder that Yeats was inspired and compelled to include literary works such as the poems in Ballylee " The Tower ”and“ Cool Park and Ballylee ”to create.
In 1929, Ballylee was abandoned when the Yeats family moved out and the Tower House fell into disrepair.
In 1951, a scene from John Ford's The Victorious , in which John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara cross a river, was filmed near Thoor Ballylee.
Mary Hanley (1914–1979) was the founder of the Kiltartan Society . Hanley, who was from Carron , County Clare , formed the society in 1961 to nurture an interest in the district's literary history, particularly that of Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and WB Yeats. She was responsible for the restoration of Thoor Ballylee (with the help of Bord Fáilte and the Yeats family). At that time the property belonged to the Office of Public Works . Hanley persuaded the poet Pedraic Colum to open the castle on Sunday, June 20, 1965, the 100th birthday of Yeats, as "Yeats' Tower", the building looking as if Yeats still lived there; it served seethe as a Yeats Museum with a collection of its first editions and pieces of furniture. The adjacent miller's hut became a café and souvenir shop. These were later extended by a newly built building in the rear.
today
The nearby Steamstown River occasionally floods Thoor Ballylee. This happened particularly in 1995 and at the turn of the year 2009/2010. In 2009 the Tower House was considerably damaged as a result. For a while, it seemed like government financial problems were preventing the money from being made available to repair it.
Restoration work began in February 2012 at the instigation of Fáilte Ireland , even if it was not yet possible to give a date for the reopening. One of the organizers of the restoration was Lorraine Higgins , Senator from East Galway , who suggested that a reopened Yeats' Tower would be a magnet for tourism in the area.
In February 2013, the Tower House was still not reopened. But a private group - in collaboration with Fáilte Ireland - entrusted the Galway Rural Development , a workfare organization , with the maintenance work.
In 2014, a local community group, the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society , leased Thoor Ballylee from Fáilte Ireland to convert it into a culture and education center for Yeats' 150th birthday in June 2015. The Society worked with the National Yeats Steering Committee and the Yeats Society to ensure Thoor Ballylee would become an integral part of the 2015 Yeats Celebration.
In early December 2015, storm “Desmond” devastated parts of Ireland with floods and destructive winds. Thoor Ballylee and the adjacent miller's hut were damaged by a meter-high flood.
description
The Tower House has four floors, each with one room, which are connected by a spiral staircase in the 2.1 meter thick outer wall. Each floor has a window that overlooks the Streamstown River, which runs along Thoor Ballylee. A small, thatched-roof farmhouse is attached to the tower.
Yeats described the room on the first floor as "the most comfortable room he had ever seen, with a great, wide window opening out over the river and an arched door that led to the thatched hall." He admired that too Staircase set into the outer wall and symbolically explained: “This winding, circling, spiraling treadmill on a staircase is the staircase of my ancestors; these Goldsmiths, Dean, Berkeley and Burke ran here. "
There is a plaque on the outer wall reminding of Yeats's stay:
I, the poet William Yeats,
With old mill boards and sea-green slates,
And smithy work from the Gort forge,
Restored this tower for my wife George.
And may these characters remain
When all is ruin once again.
I, the poet William Yeats, restored this tower house for my wife George
using old mill panels and sea-green slate
and ironwork from the Gort forge
.
May these lines remain
when everything is in ruins again.
literature
- Peter Harbison : Guide to the Naional Monuments in the Republic of Ireland Gill and Macmillan, Dublin 1992 ISBN 0-7171-1956-4 p. 101
Individual evidence
- ^ Main Record - County Galway: Ballylee Bridge, County Galway . In: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage . Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
- ^ House: Ballylee Castle . In: Landed Estate Database . NUI Galway. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
- ↑ Thoor Ballylee . In: Places of Interest . Gortonline. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
- ↑ Quotation: “It satisfied his desire for a rooted place in a well-known landscape, not far from Coole and his lifelong friend Lady Gregory. Life in a tower house may have been at odds with his focus on a tradition of cultured aristocracy that he envied and the leisure peace he enjoyed. "
- ↑ a b Thoor Ballylee - Yeats' Thin Place . Thinplace.net. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
- ↑ Quotation: “In the county of Galway near the town of Gort there is a Norman castle from the 16th century, to which a small hut is attached. The Irish Literary Revival began near the castle - in Coole Park, an estate owned by Lady Gregory, where she gave space to the inclinations of George Bernhard Shaw, WB Yeats and JM Synge. It was a haven - a retreat for William Butler Yeats. "
- ↑ a b Thoor Ballylee . In: Places to Visit - Castles . DoChara. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
- ↑ Quotation: "When Yeats bought the tower for £ 35 in 1917, it was in serious disrepair and he spent the next two years restoring it as a family home."
- ^ Thoor Ballylee - Home of WB Yeats . Comma. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
- ^ Photos by Thoor Ballylee. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
- ↑ Galway Guide. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
- ↑ Quote: "... who lived there from 1921 to 1929."
- ^ A b Ballylee Castle, County Galway . In: Attractions - Castles . IrelandsEye. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
- ↑ Quotation: "It has four floors and its original windows are still preserved on the upper floors, even if Yeats and his architect, Professor William A. Scott, had larger windows built in the lower floors."
- ↑ Quotation: “When Yeats named the property, he dropped the term 'castle' and replaced it with 'Thoor' - the Irish word for tower - and the place was called 'Thoor Ballylee'. Yeats, his wife and their children enjoyed this country retreat and used it as a summer home for 12 years. He mentioned in a letter to a friend that 'everything is so beautiful that it would mean leaving beauty behind if you went somewhere else'. "
- ↑ Quotation: “Ballylee was abandoned and began to decline in the early 1930s. For Yeats 100th birthday in 1965, the property was fully restored to look like he was still living in it. Today it is an information center on Yeats' life and works. "
- ↑ Tourist Site: Thoor Ballylee N. 66 . Travel.Via Michelin.com. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 28, 2011.
- ↑ Quotation: “This 16th century permanent house, which William Butler Yeats used as a summer home for 11 years, is a common symbol in his poetic works, as evidenced by an inscription on the wall across the street. He spent most of the summer months rebuilding the four floors of the tower before giving up the property in 1929. In 1964 the Kiltartan Society had restoration work carried out on the building, along with work on the adjacent miller's hut and mill wheel. "
- ^ Website of Thoor Ballylee. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
- ^ Nicola Corless: Thoor Ballylee closed for the 'foreseeable future' . The Clare Champion. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
- ↑ Nicola Corless: No reopening date for Thoor Ballylee . The Clare Champion. February 16, 2012. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
- ^ Lorraine Higgins website. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
- ↑ Kernan Andrews: Thoor Ballylee to get much needed clean up . Galway Advertiser. February 14, 2013. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
- ^ Website of Thoor Ballylee. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
- ^ Thoor Ballylee - WB Yeats' Tower . In: Tarot Hermeneutics - Exploring how we Create Meaning with Tarot . Retrieved January 8, 2019.
- ↑ National Inventory of Architectural Heritage: Yeats' Tower . Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
