NEW PUSH TO RE-OPEN GORT TOURIST AMENITY

Date Published: 14-Sep-2011

There's a new push to have the W.B. Yeats' home in Thoor Ballylee in Gort repaired and re-opened as a tourist attraction.

Labour Senator Lorraine Higgins is calling for Government funding to do up the Tower in a bid to revive the tourism sector in East Galway.

Yeats bought the tower in 1917 and used it as a summer home for his family but the flooding of recent years damaged it and closed it to the public.

Senator Higgins believes Galway should promote the Yeats connection with the region more as Sligo has done with Yeat's grave in Drumcliffe.

She's meeting Fáilte Ireland and the OPW in the coming weeks to plan Thoor Ballylee's revival.