Maud Gonne
45 Lord Edward St, Sligo, F91 NW0F
This is a two-part mural, which shows the Irish Revolutionary leader Maud Gonne, and the text of WB Yeats’s poem When You Are Old on the wall bellow. Gonne was born in England in 1866 and spent much of her early childhood in France. She travelled regularly to Ireland where she learnt of the land war and evections, and she became very opposed to English control of Ireland. In 1889 she met WB Yeats in London and he quickly fell madly in love with her. Gonne became an inspiration for his poetry and even starred in one of his plays.
However, Gonne insisted that their love was only platonic, and turned down many proposals by Yeats. In 1903 Maud Gonne married Major John McBride and had a son, but she soon filed for divorce with claims of abuse by McBride. After the divorce was not granted the two decided to separate, and Gonne remained in Paris with McBride moving back to Dublin. Yeats and Gonne remained in contact with each other, but after more rejections, Yeats went on to have a happy marriage with Georgie Hyde-lees. The Yeats poem you see is believed to be directed towards Maud Gonne, and is asking her to look into the future and imagine herself regretting having not returned his love.