The Fiddler of Dooney
The Fiddler of Dooney - context Summary
Composed 1890, Published 1893
Written in 1890 and published in The Rose (1893), this short lyric reflects Yeats's interest in Irish folklore and rural heritage. It presents a celebratory speaker—the fiddler of Dooney—whose music summons communal joy and contrasts worldly prayerful lives with song. The poem frames merriment as a moral quality and links local custom to a timeless, even afterlife, recognition of the fiddler’s role in communal identity.
Read Complete AnalysesWhen I play on my fiddle in Dooney. Folk dance like a wave of the sea; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Mocharabuiee. 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.
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