“That he follow with desire Bodies that can never tire”
In celebration of Yeats’ 150 birthday, ILF Dublin presents the second of two special events inspired by Yeats’ words. Bodies That Can Never Tire gathers some of Ireland’s most remarkable figures – from community activists to hip-hop artists, social justice campaigners to poets – to explore what Yeats’ vision means to them. Featuring readings, music and poetry, Bodies That Can Never Tire is a unique celebration of the legacy of Ireland’s great national poet.
We are delighted to announce Michael Shannon (The Iceman, Boardwalk Empire) Clark Middleton (Birdman & Kill Bill), Séan Doyle (Fair City), Aoife Duffin (What Richard Did, Moone Boy), Aoibhin Garrihy (Fair City, The Fall, Pride and Prejudice at Gate Theatre) Maeve Fitzgerald (Nominated for ‘Best Actress’ in the 2011 Off West End Theatre), Katie Donovan (Rootling: New & Selected Poems), Lorcan Cranitch (King Lear, The Dead, Pygmalion, and The House - The Abbey Theatre), Patrick McCabe (shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize, for The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto, Deirdre Kinahan (playwright whose new play Spinning opened at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2014), composer Tom Lane (HARP | a river cantata, Twelfth Night Abbey Theatre), Songs in the Key of D Choir, The Evertides and Lethal Dialect (Dublin rapper Paul Alwright) will join us for this 150 year celebration of W.B Yeats. In WB Yeats’ great play, An Baile Strand, Cuchulainn is asked to take an oath to defend the country. Against his will he agrees and sings the oath, including the lines above. Being half man, half god, Cuchulainn himself is a ‘body that can never tire’, but in these lines Yeats focuses on the artist’s inner drive to satisfy dreams, visions and supernatural impulses. These ‘bodies that can never tire’ are different for everybody and fuel ambition, obsession and revolution. They are central to artistic creation.