Madam, - I have been intrigued by the media debate regarding the purchase of Lissadell House by the State.
I want to correct the very erroneous statement made (July 23rd) by Irish Times correspondent Arthur Beesley (and in a number of letters to the paper also) that Yeats "was a frequent visitor to Lissadell". He visited the house twice. According to Anne Marreco in her biography, The Rebel Countess: The Life and Times of Constance Markievicz, (p. 57): "The winter of 1894-95 was memorable at Lissadell for the two visits of Yeats." And in an interview in the Guardian (November 10th, 2001), with Sir Josslyn Gore Booth, there is an explicit acceptance of the tenuous Yeatsian link. "Yeats, nearly a local boy, visited the house on at least two occasions".
Strokestown Park, with its Famine Museum in Co Roscommon, is a brilliant place and always needs more funding. I sincerely think that any additional funding available should go to Strokestown and not be wasted on Lissadell. - Yours, etc.,
EILEEN MURPHY, Belgrave Place, Wellington Road, Cork.