Sir, - When my book about W.B. Yeats's love for Maud Gonne was published, I visited many places associated with his life. In London I was lucky to gain access to 3 Blenheim Road in Chiswick, where he lived with his family and where he first met Maud Gonne. It is divided into flats and the building has no sign of any kind.
I found a plaque marking the flat in Woburn Buildings where he and Olivia Shakespear had a brief affair. I wrote to the London authorities to query this and was told that celebrities have one plaque each erected in London and Woburn Buildings was the location chosen for Yeats. Weird!
Obviously houses and plaques mattered to Yeats. The old Norman tower at Ballylee, where he and his bride George Hyde-Lees first lived, bears this inscription:
"I, the poet William Yeats
With old mill boards and seagreen 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".
Happily it is not in ruins, but a report this month suggests that Riversdale, their Dublin home for many years, may be demolished to be replaced by apartments/town houses. Could the authorities allow this to happen? Where are the protesters - the admirers of Yeats and his poetry? - Yours, etc.,
Margery Brady, Greens Hill, Kilkenny.