{"id":103769,"date":"2015-06-13T06:49:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-13T10:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=103769"},"modified":"2024-10-27T10:47:05","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T14:47:05","slug":"happy-150th-w-b-yeats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=103769","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;That is no country for old men.&#8221; Happy Birthday, W.B. Yeats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=129347\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-129347\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/image.php_.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"350\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-129347\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/image.php_.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/image.php_-100x55.jpeg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/image.php_-200x109.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/image.php_-400x219.jpeg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My parents had <i>Clancy Brothers at Carnegie Hall<\/i> on vinyl, and we listened to it constantly. It was the background of my childhood. I memorized &#8220;O&#8217;Driscoll Host of the Air&#8221; (having no idea it was by William Butler Yeats) probably by the time I was 4. &#8220;Host of the Air&#8221; is not one of his great poems (like &#8220;Sailing to Byzantium,&#8221; &#8220;The Second Coming,&#8221; or &#8220;Among Schoolchildren&#8221;) but it is one of his most beloved. <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/O56hGun0d4Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nYeats is woven into my family life, and my connection with Yeats, through my father, was the subject of my first published piece, in 2006, in <i><a href=\"http:\/\/review.sewanee.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Sewanee Review<\/a><\/i>. It was called &#8220;Two Birds.&#8221; Which had to do with Flann O&#8217;Brien&#8217;s book, of course, but also had to do with Yeats&#8217; &#8220;Wild Swans at Coole&#8221;, and how I put those references together in my mind, age 7, 8. Birds seemed to be everywhere in these Irish references from my Dad, and I tried to make sense of it. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=129345\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-129345\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/11535905_10153062929447632_1133814347239296679_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"960\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-129345\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/11535905_10153062929447632_1133814347239296679_n.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/11535905_10153062929447632_1133814347239296679_n-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/11535905_10153062929447632_1133814347239296679_n-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/11535905_10153062929447632_1133814347239296679_n-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/11535905_10153062929447632_1133814347239296679_n-400x400.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>The back cover of <i>The Sewanee Review<\/i>, where my essay was excerpted. It was a moment where I actually shared space &#8211; equal space &#8211; with William Trevor. A major moment.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>There is much to say about Yeats, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=68404\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I&#8217;ve said it before in the past<\/a>, and the Irish Times has a fantastic page devoted to Yeats&#8217; 150th: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/culture\/books\/wb-yeats-at-150\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Go check it out<\/a> &#8211; so much good stuff. <\/p>\n<p>Yeats makes me think of Dad. Thank you, Dad, for raising us in a home filled with references like this, filled with books and adult interests and stories to be told of times in the past, of towering figures like Yeats, or Maud Gonne, or James Joyce, or Lady Gregory. You shared that stuff with us. It was the atmosphere we breathed. <\/p>\n<p>Happy birthday, Yeats. <\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=129342\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-129342\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/10401919_10152249047007632_4147233568506141411_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"604\" height=\"419\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-129342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/10401919_10152249047007632_4147233568506141411_n.jpg 604w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/10401919_10152249047007632_4147233568506141411_n-100x69.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/10401919_10152249047007632_4147233568506141411_n-200x139.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/10401919_10152249047007632_4147233568506141411_n-400x277.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<i>My father at Yeats&#8217; grave<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My parents had Clancy Brothers at Carnegie Hall on vinyl, and we listened to it constantly. It was the background of my childhood. I memorized &#8220;O&#8217;Driscoll Host of the Air&#8221; (having no idea it was by William Butler Yeats) probably &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=103769\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,9],"tags":[35,224],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103769"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194823,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103769\/revisions\/194823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}