W. B. Yeats W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. A pillar of the Irish literary establishment, he helped to found the Abbey Theatre, and in his later years served as a Senator of the Irish Free State for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn and others. Yeats was born in Sandymount, Ireland and educated there and in London. He spent childhood holidays in County Sligo and studied poetry from an early age when
Padraic Colum Maguire. Padraic taught at Pádraig Pearse's experimental school, Scoil Éanna in Rathfarnham, County Dublin and Mary Maguire taught at the girls' school, Scoil Íde or St. Ita's, which was set up in Cullenswood House, Ranelagh, Dublin, once Scoil Éanna had moved to Rathfarnham. At first the couple lived in the Dublin suburb of Donnybrook, where they held a regular Tuesday literary salon. They then moved to Howth, a small fishing village just to the north of the capital. In 1914, they travelled to the US for what was intended to be a visit of a few months but lasted most