The Yeats legacy, reimagined: Caitríona Yeats on harp, heritage and home in Denmark

The Yeats name bears a legacy matched by very few. Although her grandfather, poet W.B Yeats, was seldom mentioned in her house growing up, Caitríona Yeats was always aware of the name's significance.

Creativity in all dimensions runs in the family, with Caitríona Yeats’ talents showing in the musical field. She has forged a successful international career as a harpist, playing with multiple world-renowned orchestras and eventually settling down in Denmark.

Born in Churchtown in Dublin but later moving to Dalkey, she spent her formative years in Dublin’s coastal town. Her father, Michael Butler Yeats, was a barrister and politician who served as a member of Seanad Éireann. Her mother sang and played the Irish harp.

Music featured heavily in family life and her father would play classical music as he worked in his office. One day he found a young Caitríona sitting outside the door and asked what she was doing. She told him she was listening and from that day on, the door stayed open.

Going to school, Yeats says her teachers expected things of her that they never should have because of her family history. “Just because your grandfather is a great poet, doesn't mean that you're any good at poetry,” she says.

Although she knew who her grandfather was when she was growing up, her parents protected her from his fame. Her grandfather wasn't really discussed in the house. She feels this was important as her parents encouraged her and her siblings “to be their own people”, despite their famous grandfather and uncle Jack B. Yeats.

The four children in the family were all encouraged to take up an instrument as her parents believed that everyone should study music for the positive effects that it has on your brain. But it was Caitríona who showed a unique, natural ability from a young age.

She loved to practice the harp and would bound out of school every day and cycle home to practice if she didn't have music lessons. Her siblings expressed envy at the fact that she knew exactly what she wanted to do from a young age.

When a number of established harpists convinced her parents that she would be able to earn a living as a harpist, they made a decision to take her out of school age at the age 15 to pursue the instrument. This suited Caitríona as she says she was “only interested in playing the harp at that age anyway”.

When she was just 16, she went to the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague to undertake her Bachelor’s degree and solo diploma.

After she graduated, she spent some time in Ireland until deciding to move to the United States to work as a freelancer due to the lack of opportunities in the field in Ireland in the 1970s.

She then spent some time working in Sweden and Germany, before returning to America to be a part of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She eventually settled with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as principal harpist for eight years.

Caitríona eventually felt called back to Europe and she became the harpist for the Danish National Symphony Orchestra in 1993, where she stayed for 22 years, before retiring in 2015.

Not long after, she stopped playing the harp altogether. She had started to experience issues due to osteoarthritis and noticed people were always offering to help her move the harp. However she has continued to call Denmark home ever since. She has no regrets that she finished playing when she did, as she says that she is a “great believer in the young taking over”.

Making a living as a classical harpist requires “an awful lot of hard work,” she says. ”It doesn't matter how many connections you have, you have to be able to play”, and she believes that makes the harp world fairly equitable.

“Harpists in general practice a lot,” she says. She feels that she may have in fact over-practiced at times, and described herself as “very, very determined in her 20s and 30s”.

Today Caitríona Yeats is the representative for the Yeats family, a job her father had been preparing her for, although she wasn't aware of it at the time.

She is a patron of the Sligo Yeats Society Sligo where she often takes part in the Yeats International Summer School that has taken place every July for the past 67 years. She also attends seminars, openings and other events with 2023 standing out as a particularly busy year with the 100-year anniversary celebration of W.B. Yeats receiving the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature.

She travels back-and-forth to Ireland often which has helped her hold on to the Irish language and she is very involved with the Irish community in Denmark. Many of her friends are Irish, some of whom she has a book club with.

She listens to RTÉ Radio every morning, which she says makes her feel close to Ireland. She knows that when she gets older she might not be able to travel as much and feels that that will be difficult. She will miss going back so often but for now she is happily enjoying life between Copenhagen and Dublin.