AN EXHIBITION dedicated to the memory of WB Yeats, which was to have been opened this week, has been put on hold because of a continuing row over Lissadell House, the Co Sligo childhood home of his friend Countess Constance Markievicz.
The launch on Wednesday was to have been part of a number of events marking the 70th anniversary of the death of the poet.
Lissadell House is included in a Fáilte Ireland brochure promoting a Yeats Passport Trail, but the house and its 400-acre estate have been closed to visitors since a row over rights of way flared after the brochure was printed. Lissadell’s owners, lawyer couple Edward Walsh and Constance Cassidy, said they would honour existing commitments when they announced the closure.
Yesterday Mr Walsh said it was agreed with Fáilte Ireland representatives that it would be pointless launching the exhibition when it would be closed to the public.
Mr Walsh said he spent two years building up the exhibition and had sourced original Yeats material which would have been available for public viewing for the first time. Letters included one which he believed could have been the last one written by the poet, sent from Roquebrune in France – where Yeats lived in his final days – to a Mr Duncan, who sought the poet’s approval of a play he had written for the Abbey Theatre.
Fáilte Ireland and the Yeats Society are going ahead with the anniversary commemoration events which include a memorial service in St John’s Cathedral, Sligo, the launch of a DVD Cast A Cold Eye and Sheelagh Kirby’s book The Yeats Country.
An exploratory meeting takes place this evening in Dublin between Mr Walsh and Sligo county manager Hubert Kearns in a bid to break the impasse.
Mr Walsh has initiated High Court proceedings against the council which voted last month to amend the county development plan to provide for preservation of a public right of way across Lissadell estate. The council set aside the resolution in favour of talks with Mr Walsh who insisted he was going ahead with the action.
Mr Walsh and Ms Cassidy say they were assured there was no public right of way when they bought the estate for €4.55 million in 2003.