Lissadell House and Gardens, Sligo, Ireland

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info@lissadellhouse.com

LISSADELL HOUSE AND GARDENS

OPEN

from 07 August to 10 October

All traffic must use the Church Avenue entrance (one mile from the Coillte entrance).

LEONARD COHEN

AT

LISSADELL

“I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to Yeats’ Country to fool you”

from the song “Hallelujah”

as sung at the

Lissadell Concerts 2010

Leonard Cohen at Lissadell by Pamela Cassidy

THE YEATS GALLERY

OPENED BY

LEONARD COHEN

POET, NOVELIST, SINGER, SONGWRITER

On 01 August 2010

The new exhibition in the Yeats Gallery displays a definitive collection of first edition and rare books, original letters, paintings, drawings, photographs and ephemera focussing on the life and works of the poet William Butler Yeats, his brother the artist Jack, his father the portrait painter John; the artistic works of his sisters Lily and Lolly at the Cuala Press; and the works of thier literary and artistic contemporaries. The collection is both comprehensive and unique, and has been painstakingly assembled over the past five years. For more information click on YEATS above.

Leonard Cohen in the Yeats' Gallery at Lissadell

Leonard Cohen at the Yeats Gallery on 01 August, 2010

LISSADELL

Lissadell house by Pamela Cassidy

"That old grey mansion": W. B. Yeats

The Lissadell Estate is the family home of Edward Walsh, his wife Constance Cassidy and their seven young children, who have undertaken the magnificent restoration without any public funding. Writing about Lissadell for the Sunday Times thirty eight years ago, the BBC's Anne Robinson ('The Weakest Link') observed that "the garden is overgrown, the greenhouses are shattered and empty, the stables beyond repair, the roof of the main block leaks badly and the paintings show patches of mildew". An intensive programme of restoration has taken place in the House, Gardens and Stable Block since 2004 and Lissadell is once again a thing of beauty.

Click here for the text of Anne Robinson's article

"It’s a wonderful place – if you have to choose just one visitor attraction in Ireland to visit, make it Lissadell. And allow plenty of time": Georgina Campbell's Ireland 2009 Guide.

The Alpine Garden at Lissadell (above)

Lissadell is famous as the childhood home of Constance Markievicz, her sister Eva Gore Booth and her brother Josslyn Gore Booth. Constance was one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, and was the first woman to be elected to Dail Eireann,where she served as Minister for Labour (thus becoming the first woman minister in a modern European democracy), and was also the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons at Westminster, London (where she declined to take her seat). Eva was a poet of distinction and an active suffragist. Josslyn created at Lissadell one of the premier horticultural estates in Europe. This horticultural enterprise has now been recreated at Lissadell. Sligo born poet W. B. Yeats was friendly with the Gore Booth sisters and stayed at Lissadell in 1893 and 1894. He immortalised Lissadell and the Gore Booth sisters in his poetry.

The light of evening, Lissadell
Great windows open to the south
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle. ...

Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

W. B. Yeats

EXHIBITIONS at Lissadell include the Constance Markievicz Exhibition opened by An Taoiseach in March 2007, and an exhibition of works and images of the poet W. B. Yeats (which should have opened in January 2009 as part of the Sligo Yeats Trail).

Images of W. B. Yeats, Countess Markievicz and AE (George Russell) on display at Lissadell

OUR VISION is to transform the estate into a flagship for tourism in Sligo and the North West, and to provide a secure environment for our seven children. We do not wish to exploit Lissadell commercially but to restore the house and gardens to their former glory, and make Lissadell self-sustaining, if possible.

Edward Walsh, Constance Cassidy and family.