Enniscrone is set to celebrate its very own unique Yeats link

Yeats is synonymous with Sligo, particularly north Sligo, but now there is evidence to suggest that the connection with the county also extends to the west Sligo region.

It has emerged that Enniscrone was the birthplace of WB Yeats’ sister Susan Mary Yeats, more commonly known as Lily.

Local knowledge suggests that Lily Yeats was born in a location somewhere along Pier Road in the village, and to celebrate the 150th year of her birth a talk is planned for this August on her life and the wider Yeats connection to Enniscrone.

Chair of Yeats2015 and former Labour Senator Susan O’Keeffe along with historian Conor MacHale are set to deliver the talk, pencilled in for the 25th of August of this year – 150 years since the birth of Lily Yeats in 1866.

The talk will take place in Jesus and Mary Secondary School, which is the exact location of Lily Yeats’ birthplace.

“She was born somewhere along Pier Road,” says Michael Breen, who is involved in organising the event.

“We believe she was born in a house connected with the Blakeney’s, who were the big family in Enniscrone at the time.

The Yeats family may have come to Enniscrone to rent a cottage for a number of months, and perhaps there was a connection between Yeats’ mother and the Blakeney’s but we are not fully sure.”

Historian Conor MacHale, who is originally from Enniscrone but now living in Dublin, says that the Yeats family used to spend holiday time in Enniscrone and that they used to stay in a cottage where the secondary school currently stands.

“I was told by my mother, and she was told by Hamilton Blakeney who lived there at the time,” Conor said.

“They [ the Yeats family] used to come to Enniscrone on holidays and stayed in a cottage on Pier Road. There are actually paintings of Enniscrone from 1866 by John Yeats of the pier and the old bathhouse published and signed.”

The event will take place on August 25th, with more details to follow in the coming weeks.