Dublin, Scene of Yeats' Political Life
Dublin served as the center for much of Yeats' political activity. In the 1890s, Yeats and Maud Gonne worked feverishly to establish an Irish literary identity, forming societies and speaking across Ireland. He evidently marched in a few nationalist demonstrations with his beloved as well (MacLiammóir and Boland 46), but for the main steered clear of the kind of public fracas on which Gonne seemed to thrive. However, in W.B. Yeats and His World, MacLiammóir and Boland summarize, “From the time of the Easter Rising of 1916 up to the Civil War of 1922, Yeats was more affected by public events than he had been since 1898 when, under the influence of Maud Gonne, he had joined the Commemoration Committee of the Insurrection of 1798” (84). While the Easter Rising focused the attention of Yeats, and most others in Ireland, his early political interest intersected with his growing relationship with Maud Gonne.
There was a brief period in the 1890s that Jeffares notes in his introduction to the Yeats-Gonne letters certainly was a politically active time for Yeats. In 1886 Yeats joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which perhaps led up to his greater involvement in political matters by 1898, when he became part of the plans for the centenary celebration of the 1798 United Irish Rebellion. In fact, “he became president of the Executive Committee of the Centenary Association for Greater Britain and France, seeing himself briefly in the role of a political leader who would unite the Irish parties," calling meetings, planning to deputize members to sit in Parliament, and authorizing Gonne to tour America and collect funds to establish a Wolfe Tone memorial (Jeffares 24). However, try as Yeats did to keep political propaganda out of his writing, the events of Easter 1916 so burned in his life and imagination that the images began to fill his poetry, as witness such famous poems as “Easter, 1916” and “The Wild Swans at Coole.” In this respect, MacLiammóir and Boland are quite right to suggest that politics affect the man/writer more at this time than at any other.
Once Ireland won its fight for independence, Ulster not included, Yeats accepted a position as Senator in the Free State in 1922. MacLiammóir and Boland describe Senator Yeats as “an impressive and able figure in Irish public life (98). MacLiammóir and Boland record that Yeats “on 18 July [1928] gave his last speech to the Senate; his term of office was now over, and, on account of his poor health, he did not seek re-election” (102). Five years' public service gave way to his writing once again.
In Dublin: In the Age of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, Richard M. Kain writes a superb summary of the connection between Yeats and his country:
Explore Yeats' Dublin
This zoomable map shows important events in Yeats' life that happened in Dublin. Hover over dots for more information about events and locations. The lighter the dot, the more events took place at that location.
There was a brief period in the 1890s that Jeffares notes in his introduction to the Yeats-Gonne letters certainly was a politically active time for Yeats. In 1886 Yeats joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which perhaps led up to his greater involvement in political matters by 1898, when he became part of the plans for the centenary celebration of the 1798 United Irish Rebellion. In fact, “he became president of the Executive Committee of the Centenary Association for Greater Britain and France, seeing himself briefly in the role of a political leader who would unite the Irish parties," calling meetings, planning to deputize members to sit in Parliament, and authorizing Gonne to tour America and collect funds to establish a Wolfe Tone memorial (Jeffares 24). However, try as Yeats did to keep political propaganda out of his writing, the events of Easter 1916 so burned in his life and imagination that the images began to fill his poetry, as witness such famous poems as “Easter, 1916” and “The Wild Swans at Coole.” In this respect, MacLiammóir and Boland are quite right to suggest that politics affect the man/writer more at this time than at any other.
Once Ireland won its fight for independence, Ulster not included, Yeats accepted a position as Senator in the Free State in 1922. MacLiammóir and Boland describe Senator Yeats as “an impressive and able figure in Irish public life (98). MacLiammóir and Boland record that Yeats “on 18 July [1928] gave his last speech to the Senate; his term of office was now over, and, on account of his poor health, he did not seek re-election” (102). Five years' public service gave way to his writing once again.
In Dublin: In the Age of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, Richard M. Kain writes a superb summary of the connection between Yeats and his country:
While Yeats would not pick up a gun to fight for his country, he certainly championed the Irish identity and free nationhood, both in his writing and in his public life, even agreeing to serve his new nation at its inception. He represents, in many ways—heritage, language, ties to east and west of Ireland, and through his ideas—that truly postcolonial Irish individual who is both thoroughly Irish and yet a complex mixture due to the history that makes the Irish nation and person.Yeats devoted his life to making himself a poet at the very time that Ireland was becoming a nation. His first collection of verse appeared in 1889. In that year the Irish party rejected Parnell as its leader, and Ireland thereby lost its last hope for independence through constitutional methods. When Yeats died in January, 1939, the present Irish Constitution had been in effect for only one year. It is fitting that Ireland should have produced her first major poet in this period. The coincidence was not entirely accidental, for the experience of Yeats paralleled that of his country, and his questions were hers. Through fifty years he had reflected on national destiny, and in pamphlet, speech, and poem [and plays] had tried to define the national character. Divided himself, he well bespoke a divided country; by nature timid, he was made bold by opposition. His patriotism was never shallow. If he was at times arrogant and tactless, he always sought a heroic ideal, for himself and for his country. (21)
Explore Yeats' Dublin
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