P234/291 Photogravure by Emery Walker: portrait of Yeats by Charles Shannon, 1908
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In this final blog post for 2024, we will look at letters in Josephine McNeill’s papers concerning the death of W.B. Yeats. These letters include what is claimed by his wife, George, to be the last letter he wrote. Some of the letters quote other letters sent to the letter-writers about Yeats’ last days, his burial in France, and his reinterment in Sligo. They also give an indication of the wide literary circle in which McNeill moved, and the depth of affection among this group of friends, for each other, and for Yeats.
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Holograph letter from W.B. Yeats, Hotel Idéal-Séjour, Cap-Martin, France, to McNeill, Woodley Park, Dundrum, Co. Dublin, expressing his condolences on the death of her husband, James:
UCDA P234/289 Letter from W.B. Yeats to Josephine McNeill, 24 January 1939
January 24
My dear Josephine,
I was distressed to hear a few days ago of your husband’s death. I get no Irish newspapers.
What can I say except that he was a wise and charming man who did his country considerable service and that I mourn the loss of a friend.
Yours
W.B. Yeats
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Typescript copy by McNeill of Yeats’s letter to her of 24 January 1939 with the heading ‘Copy of letter from W.B. Yeats written four days before his death and very probably his last letter’:
UCDA P234/290 Annotated copy of UCDA P234/290
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Typescript letter from George Yeats, Riversdale, Willbrook, Rathfarnham, Dublin, to McNeill, Woodley Park, referring to the death of her husband and confirming that his letter to McNeill of 24 January was the last letter he wrote:
UCDA P234/281 Letter from George Yeats to Josephine McNeill, 4 February 1939
February 4 1939
My dear Josephine
Yes, his letter to you was the last he ever wrote. We had only heard the news of your loss a few days before. The last two months have been very strange; he foresaw his death and yet did not I think really believe it was to come so soon. Elizabeth Pelham wrote to me on January 30th of a letter she received on the 23rd. She quotes some passages from it: “ I know for certain my time will not be long … in two or three weeks—I am now idle that I may rest after writing much verse—I will begin to write my most fundamental thoughts … I am happy and I think full of energy, of an energy I had despaired of. It seems to me that I have found what I wanted. When I try to put all into a phrase I say “Man can embody truth but he cannot know it.” I must embody it in the completion of my life.”
I thank you so much for your letters.
Yours affectionately
George Yeats
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Typescript letter from playwright Lennox Robinson, 20 Longford Terrace, Monkstown, Co. Dublin, to McNeill, 3 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, including a transcription of a letter sent to him by Dermo[d] O’Brien, Eden Hotel, Cap D’Ail, France, about Yeats’ death and funeral:
UCD P234/211 Letter from Lennox Robinson to Josephine McNeill, [February 1939]
31 January 1939
We buried W.B. yesterday in the little cemetery on the highest point of Roquebrune that dominates Cap Martin and Monaco, a beautiful spot where he had expressed the wish to be buried if not taken back to Sligo. … We were very fortunate in that we had called on Willy and George after a drive up the country the Sunday before. George was out but he received me in his bedroom where he was at work in his dressing-gown. He made me shove his M.S. [manuscript] into a drawer and bring Mabel [O’Brien’s wife] in when he gave us delightful talk as he lay in bed full of life apparently and good spirits and at work on poetry of which he was full and to which he could give time, as his physical condition had freed him from all responsibility about the Theatre, etc. It was a delightful half-hour or so of gay chat and amusing gay comments and reminiscences.
On Saturday George rang me up to say he had died and would I arrange for clergyman, etc.
After dinner we motored over, picking up the padre on the way, George took me into his room where he lay looking indescribably noble and beautiful and as if he had fallen asleep with some happy thought that left the suspicion of a smile on his lips. I had never realised what a beautiful head he had when his features were at rest. Alas, at last at that hour there was no chance of getting a photo, and a change came very rapidly, said George, and that on Sunday she did not want any record of him as then appearing.
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Holograph letter from novelist Kate O’Brien, Silverton Hotel, Monkstown, Co. Dublin, to McNeill, 3 Fitzwilliam Square, in which she refers to the reinterment of Yeats’ remains at Drumcliff, Co. Sligo:
UCDA P234/141 Letter from Kate O’Brien to Josephine McNeill, 20 September 1948
…I have been far in the west all these months, seeing almost no one and hearing no news. It was odd suddenly then to encounter all together again so many acquaintances, at the poet’s funeral. That was a beautiful and entertaining jaunt. …
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Holograph letter from George Yeats, 46 Palmerstown Road, Dublin, to McNeill, Irish Legation, The Hague, The Netherlands, concerning the forthcoming celebration of Yeats’s poetry organised by Josephine McNeill and Dutch poet. Adriaan Roland Holst*, in which she refers to the reinterment of Yeats’ remains in Drumcliffe in 1948:
UCDA P234/283 Letter from George Yeats to Josephine McNeill, 10 November 1951
10 November 1951
…WBY arrived in Sligo on September 17, 1948. (The Corvette docked in Galway on Monday Sept. 16 but those details are non-essential.) I hope someone will eventually write a description of the journey from Galway to Sligo which should be recorded. Perhaps some child who was among the many children on the way will do it better than any one who knew WBY. I hoped Tom MacGreevy might write it, but I doubt if he will. That it was Sean MacBride who arranged for the Corvette, that the Corvette was the “Macha”,** all seemed so perfect. However all that is my own feeling & irrelevant to your theme. …
This post was written by Kate Manning, Principal Archivist, UCD Archives
* P234/60–P234/101 Letters from Adriaan (‘Jany’) Roland Holst to Josephine McNeill, 1950–54.
** W.B. Yeats and the Irish Naval Service Online exhibition by the Military Archives on the LÉ Macha, the Irish Naval Service corvette which brought Yeats’ remains from France to Ireland.
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