Condition of Yeats's holiday home a 'scandal'

THE DIRECTOR of the Yeats International Summer School has described the crumbling condition of a childhood holiday home that inspired WB Yeats and his brother Jack as a “scandal”.

Prof James Pethica said WB Yeats had stayed in Elsinore in the seaside village of Rosses Point, Co Sligo, frequently as a child and as a young man wrote part of The Celtic Twilight there. Jack B Yeats’s watercolour Memory Harbour immortalised a scene close to Elsinore.

A smuggler known as “Black Jack” built the house in the 1830s and it was later purchased by William Middleton, Yeats’s grand-uncle. In later life, the poet recalled stories of secret tunnels and buried treasure that had thrilled him as a child.

“The most scandalous thing is that this ruin is right there in one of the most popular tourist resorts in Sligo,” said Prof Pethica, who stressed that the house should be saved.

Elsinore Lodge, which overlooks Oyster Island, was the subject of two planning applications in 2004 and 2005. Both were granted, subject to several conditions. They have since expired. The building is on Sligo County Council’s list of protected structures. Local archaeologist Joyce Enright, a member of the Yeats Society, said the society had over the years made a number of failed attempts to acquire the property.