The RTE current events show “Nationwide” is honouring the celebration “Yeats 150” with a dedicated programme, available worldwide on the RTÉ Player International from June 10.

Presented by Mary Kennedy and Anne Cassin, “Nationwide” brings Irish viewers an eclectic round-up of news, views and events from around the country. This week the show will be coming from Sligo. The programme focuses on WB Yeats as the 150th anniversary of his birth is being celebrated.

“Nationwide” joins the people of the North West as they commemorate the life and times of one of Ireland’s greatest writers. Experience the sights associated with WB Yeats and hear of the plans to keep his legacy alive in Sligo and surrounding counties.

YEATS EVENTS

Next Saturday (June 13) is “Yeats Day,” the great poets actual birthday and there will be numerous events happening to mark the day, not just in Sligo but around the country and even internationally.

The celebrations will have a special significance in Sligo, the county which inspired so much of his work and which is now known as “Yeats Country.”

YEATS LANDMARKS

The great love of Sligo which permeates Yeats poetry is something WB Yeats has passed on to many other people. Every year thousands of visitors go to Sligo to visit the poets grave at Drumcliffe.

They come to visit the places he talked about, to enjoy the archaeology and scenery and to experience Yeats and his poetry in the places which inspired him.

Born in Dublin in 1865, this weekend marks the 150th anniversary of William Butler Yeats birth. One of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century, Yeats received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923. An acclaimed poet and playwright, it is said it is hard to imagine the revolutionary decade without him.

His hauntingly beautiful poems such as “The Late Isle of Inisfree”, and “The Stolen Child” are juxtaposed with powerful poems that document the political unrest in “September 1913”, and “Easter 1916”.

A cultural revolutionary, he co-founded the Abbey Theatre, the Irish Literary Society, and the Cuala Press. He is forever associated with his muse, Maude Gonne, and his unrequited love for her is well documented.

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