Skyler White

These are all shots of  what Yeats described as “an island almost all castle” in Lough Key (pronounced Lock Key!)  near Boyle. I rented a little rowboat, paddled out and knocked around the island, completely alone, for the better part of two hours taking notes. It’s an amazing structure – parts of it connected to other parts only by second story doors, part completely incomprehensible. Yeat fell in love with it and planned an ambitious Castle of Heroes on the site, a place to educate the future poets and mystics of Ireland. And the idea stayed with him all his life, and was probably behind his purchase of Thoor Ballylee.