The Fiddler of Dooney
W.B. Yeats was born 150 years ago, on 13 June, 1865. Here's his poem The Fiddler of Dooney, written in 1889, when he was 24, celebrating the importance of the fiddle player: 'For the good are always the merry, Save by an evil chance, And the merry love the fiddle And the merry love to dance': When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Moharabuiee. I passed my brother and cousin: They read in their boo