Yeats Marathon

2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the poet W.B. Yeats and as part of the celebrations on Yeats Day, June 13th, Sligo Drama Circle is delighted to announce that we are going to do a “Yeats Marathon“.

We plan on doing a marathon reading of the entire canon of Yeats poems, 378 in all, on Yeats Day. We have a team of readers in place who will recite all of the poems in relay beginning with “The Song of the Happy Shepherd” from 1889 and finishing with “Cast a cold eye/On life, on death/Horseman pass by” from the final poem “Under Ben Bulben”. Although we cannot be fully sure, we believe that this has not been done before anywhere in the world!

Not alone that, but we are hoping to be able to stream the event live on the internet to bring our Yeats Marathon to an international audience. The technical aspects of this are still being worked out so we are keeping our fingers crossed on this aspect of the project.

The event will take place in the Digital Hub in Stephen Street, home of OmniScience Design (OSD) and we would like to express our appreciation to Catríona and the OSD team for allowing us to use the unique venue for the venture. We are also grateful to the Yeats 2015 organisation for their support and encouragement.

As part of this unique venture, we are fundraising for two local worthwhile charities, North West Hospice and Sligo Cancer Support Centre. Both organisations rely heavily on donations to continue doing the great work that they do and we are delighted that both organisations will benefit from our marathon poetry reading.

We have set up a page on the My Charity website and donations can be made by debit or credit card here: http://www.mycharity.ie/event/yeats_marathon/ Rest assured that your transaction on the mycharity.ie website is very secure. You will automatically receive an e-mail thanking you for your support, and acknowledging the amount of your donation. Any donation you can make, no matter how small, will be hugely appreciated! Many thanks in advance for your support.