English Nerds, Be Jealous...

...because yesterday I saw the wild swans of Coole. Alone—apparently the only Yeats junkie of the group—I took the bus out to Gort, Co. Galway, about an hour from Limerick, and then walked 2 1/2 miles through the countryside to Coole Park, a site Yeats spent a lot time. The park essentially used to be the estate of the famous patron/playwright Lady Gregory. While her house is merely ruins—it was demolished in the 1940s—the rest of the park and nature reserve surrounding it are in tact. The walled gardens, too, are still around, as is the gigantic "Autograph Tree," which features the carved-in signatures of Yeats, Sean O'Casey and George Bernad Shaw, among others.

I then walked down to Coole Lake, the site of the famous poem "The Wild Swans at Coole." There were swans on the lake, though not quite nine and fifty, as you may see in the picture, but I don't know if they were wild or not. Given their already foul tempers, I thought I'd stay back.

Yesterday was, finally, a gorgeous day: sunny and clear skies and only a few drops of rain. The weather was even better in Gort.