W.B. Yeats, born in Dublin 1865, spent his formative years in Sligo where he enjoyed wild nature during his formative years. John B. Yeats, his father led a vicarious life painting and neglected his young family.
Yeats wanted to be a writer and associated with intellectuals from an early age. Yeats like James Joyce wandered around Dublin in unsuitable houses until his first book of poetry achieved critical acclaim.
Yeats infatuation with Maud Gonne and her rejecting his two marriage proposals inspired his love poetry with lasting results. 'I spread my dreams upon the floor, do not tread on my dreams.'; O come O stolen child, to the waters and the wild.' the light of evening Lisadell, great gates open to the south, two girls in silk kimonos, both beaurtiful, one a gazelle.'
Yeats encouraged John Millington Synge to visit the Aran Islands to write about a people never before described resulting in The Playboy of the Western World and other plays.
Yeats founded the Abbey National Theatre with Lady Gregory of Coole Park and aided Sean O Casey with The Plough and the Stars later rejecting The Silver Tassie.
Yeats is well known and designed the Irish natuional currency when he was a member of Seanad Eireann.
A towering intellect he encouraged Irish national identity.