A granddaughter of the poet WB Yeats, Catriona Yeats, last night welcomed students to the opening of the 53rd Yeats International Summer School in Sligo.

Tread Softly is a new festival organised to coincide with this year’s summer school and to highlight the link between Sligo and the Yeats brothers, William Butler and painter Jack B. While Sligo’s influence on the poet has been a talking point during every summer school for more than half a century, less well documented is Jack B Yeats’s affection for the local landscape. He once said he never created a painting “without at least a thought of Sligo in it”.

Among the highlights of the festival will be readings by Seamus Heaney, Harry Clifton, Ciaran Carson, and Bernard O’Donoghue; an exhibition at the Model arts centre of work by John B and Jack B Yeats; and a musical “extravaganza” at the Hawk’s Well Theatre featuring Steve Wickham.

There will also be a Yeats Vintage Day on August 4^th.

As is customary, the summer school started yesterday with a visit to WB Yeats’s grave at Drumcliffe Church. The school continues until August 10th.