A visitor centre opens at Coole Park the former home of Lady Augusta Gregory in south County Galway.
The park and nature reserve cover an area of almost a thousand acres and include managed and native woodland, wetlands and Coole Lough.
Sold to the State in 1927 by Lady Gregory, the native flora and fauna that thrive here inspired and revived the writers, poets and artists active in the Irish cultural revival in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. William Butler Yeats, JM Synge, Seán O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw and Oliver St John Gogarty were among those invited to spend time at Coole by Lady Gregory who herself was a folklorist, dramatist and co-founder of The Abbey Theatre.
Coole Park Nature Reserve is managed by the Office of Public Works (OPW) and the visitor centre was officially opened by Noel Treacy, Teachta Dálá (TD).
Visitor and interpretive centres themselves have been in the news many times over the past few years, but according to Noel Treacy,
All good projects are controversial.
The two guests of honour this afternoon were Lady Gregory’s granddaughters Catherine Kennedy and Anne de Winton, who spent their childhood years here and remember the visits of George Bernard Shaw and WB Yeats.
William Butler Yeats composed the poem 'For Anne Gregory’ for Anne de Winton. Summoned to his sitting room for a recitation she recalls being less than impressed,
I thought it was absolutely appalling. I was absolutely shattered. I thought it was a dreadful poem.
The two sisters did not have much interaction with Yeats as he was immersed in his own thoughts for most of the time as Catherine Kennedy explains,
He really ignored us.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 31 May 1992. The reporter is Gerry Reynolds.
