Horseman pass by

Students spent the second day of our Summer 2011 residency touring Yeats country in the company of  preeminent Yeats scholar Stella Mew. 

There really is something magical about being in the very environs that were so inspiring to Yeats and being able to feel them yourself.

We visited the Toberalt Holy Well, Doonee Rock, Hazelwood,

and, of course, Yeats's grave at Drumcliffe beneath Benbulben's bare head.

...and go to Innisfree

And so we did. In the splendor of an Irish afternoon, the Carlow University MFA in Creative Writing cohort arrived upon the shores of Lough Gill and our terrace views of the Lake Isle of Innisfree.

We dined on the lake's edge our first night here, accompanied by one of Ireland's finest young harpists and readings my this semester's esteemed mentors: Carlo Gebler, Evelyn Conlon, Sean Hardie, Mark Roper, and Brian Leyden.