Arise and go – viral!

 

• #YeatsDaySligo – A Social Media Poetry Blitz for June 13th.

• Development, Education and Cultural agencies partner world’s oldest International Summer School in trending Sligo & the poetry of W B Yeats on June 13th.
• Irelands Diaspora invited to join in the unique on-line celebration of some of our greatest literature.

 

The social media world is set to be blitzed from Sligo with some of Ireland’s greatest poetry and literature on June 13th, Yeats Day, the Birthday of WB Yeats

Yeats Society Sligo is aiming to send Yeats and Sligo viral with a highly innovative Yeats Day Challenge to everyone at home and abroad, and to lovers of Yeats poetry all around the world.

The idea is simple.

• On or before June 13th people video themselves, family, friends, work colleagues on smart phones reading a few short lines from any poem by WB Yeats.
• Keep it short (a few favourite lines or a short poem by Yeats so it will upload quickly).
• Then, on Yeats Day, Thursday June 13th post these clips to any and all social media platforms of choice with a #YeatsDaySligo tag.
• Make sure to like and share any posts you see on Yeats Day with #YeatsDaySligo.  
• Send Yeats and Sligo viral.

Yeats Society Sligo hopes the idea will take root and people will engage with it imaginatively, venturing into the great outdoors, at work, in schools and clubs, coffee shops, among family and friends and that it will strike a chord for a genuine communal sharing of poetry and the arts. The event is also part of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Yeats International Summer School, now the world’s longest running summer school.

Yeats Day, the brainchild of Yeats Society Director Susan O’Keeffe is now in its 8th year having been launched as a prelude to the national and international Yeats2015 celebration of Yeats’ 150th birthday.  Alongside the annual progamme of readings, street and cultural celebrations in Sligo it’s the intention of the Society that #YeatsDaySligo will unify people, including the wider Irish diaspora, and lovers of Yeats’ poetry the world over, in an on-line communal celebration and expression of some of Ireland’s greatest poetry.   

Agencies from Sligo and throughout the western development region are engaging staff and clients with the project, including ITSligo, Western Development Commission, Sligo Chamber of Commerce, Fáilte Ireland and Sligo BID. The area’s leading cultural institutions and festivals are also creating social media events especially for #YeatsDaySligo

The message from Yeats Society Sligo is for every one young and old alike, at home and away,  to join in the celebration of Sligo and the wonderful poetry of W B Yeats, to make #YeatsDaySligo  a genuine cultural celebration of poetry, of Irelands culture and literature on June 13th.