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2005 W.B. Yeats, The Racecourse, Ballybrit – “At Galway Races”
The first plaque in what went on to become the Galway Poetry Trail was unveiled at Ballybrit , the venue for the Galway Races.
The poem “At Galway Races” by William Butler Yeats was cast in bronze and placed at the side of one of the stands at the racecourse in 2005.
AT GALWAY RACES
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
There where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind:
We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for companions,
Before the merchant and the clerk
Breathed on the world with timid breath.
Sing on: somewhere at some new moon,
We’ll learn that sleeping is not death,
Hearing the whole earth change its tune,
Its flesh being wild, and it again
Crying aloud as the racecourse is,
And we find hearteners among men
That ride upon horses.
Image: The President, Mrs. Mary McAleese, accompanied by her husband Martin, visited the Galway Races on Staurday last where she unveiled a plaque bearing the W.B. Yeats poem, At Galway Races, on the Millennium Stand. The President and Dr. McAleese are pictured after the unveiling with Mrs. Helen Rooney and her husband Mr. Raymond J. Rooney, Vice Chairman of the Race Committee, Mrs. Eileen Hanley and her husband Councillor Val Hanley, Mayor of Galway, and Mr. John Coyle, Chairman of the Galway race Committee. (PHOTO: Joe O'Shaughnessy)