The Yeats Sisters Symposium

Overview

The third annual Yeats Sisters Symposium will focus on two principal themes: the life and work of Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, and the importance of place to the creative development of the Yeats Sisters & Evelyn Gleeson’s Dun Emer and Cuala industries.

Our opening session will explore the career of Elizabeth (‘Lollie’) the artist and Froebel trained teacher, Elizabeth the craftswomen, fine art printer and business owner, and her influence as a trainer and mentor of young women.

Bringing fresh insights to these aspects of Elizabeth’s extraordinary career, and the wider social and cultural norms within which she lived, will be papers from:

Dr. Sinead McCoole, Irish historian and author of: Mollie Gill: From Cuala Girl to Revolutionary Woman (2006)

Dr. Antonia Hart, historian, researcher and writer of: The Commercial Lives of Irish Women, 1850-1922: Business as Usual (2025)

Laura Thornton, Lecturer in Visual Art Education in Froebel Dept. of Primary and Early Childhood Education, Maynooth University.

The second session will explore the centrality of Dundrum and Churchtown and the importance of place to the fledgling Dun Emer/Cuala and the sisters. It will also explore the context of this south county Dublin suburban creative ecosystem that flourished and sustained, not just the principal figures of Gleeson and the Yeats Sisters, but also the contributing women artists and craft makers.

It will draw comparisons between An Túr Gloine and Dun Emer/Cuala: Purser and Gleeson and the Yeats; their collective ethos, and consider their shared vernacular creativity and craftsmanship, as evident in the local expression of St. Nahi’s Church.

This session will feature papers from:

Dr Ruth McManus, Associate Professor in Geography and Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Dublin City University and co-author of: Creativity from Suburban Nowheres: Rethinking Cultural and Creative Practices (2023)

Dr David Caron, art historian and author of: Michael Healy, 1873-1941: An Túr Gloine’s stained glass pioneer (2023) and the forthcoming: Dublin’s Stained Glass: A guide to the finest twentieth-century windows (2025), which features St. Nahi’s Church, Churchtown.

The symposium sessions will be chaired by:

Dr Angela Griffith, art historian, principal investigator of Cuala Press Project, Schooner Foundation, in partnership with Trinity College Library and Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Trinity College Dublin.

Full details of paper titles/abstracts and detailed itinerary to follow later in May.

Supporting the symposium presentation, Valerie Syms Martin, President of the Irish Water Colour Society of Ireland will host a demonstration of brushwork and watercolour techniques, capturing some of the themes illustrated in Elizabeth’s four published art manuals:

Brushwork (1896), Brushwork studies of flowers, fruits and animals (1898), Brushwork copy book (1899), and Elementary brushwork studies (1900).

In parallel, a walking tour of places central to the Sisters lives and work will be conducted by John Lennon, local historian. This will include St. Nahi’s Church and graveyard, where Susan and Elizabeth are buried, and the Dundrum Library, which will host an exhibition, in partnership with the Irish Guild of Embroiderers, of a series of contemporary individual pieces reflecting on the Cuala pressmark ‘the lone tree’ which was designed by Elizabeth 100 years ago in 1925.

On Sunday, July 13th, a limited number of participants (25: add-on ticket) will be able to enjoy a Guided Historical Tour of the National Print Museum in Beggars Bush, Dublin 4. Here they will get a first hand experience of Elizabeth Yeats' craft and talent, as well as the practical workings of a private art press such as Cuala Press.