This sculpture,by the artist Imogen Stuart, was inspired by W. B. Yeats’ beautiful poem ‘The Fiddler of Dooney’, and a photograph Stuart saw in an Irish newspaper in the late 1940’s depicting a group of little children in long cotton frocks - bare foot, holding hands and dancing on a wind-swept beach. Commissioned by architect John Costello, the sculpture is situated in Stillorgan Shopping Centre,Co.Dublin


The Fiddler of Dooney
by William Butler Yeats

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 books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like a wave of the sea.