Francis Ledwidge Museum

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Irish poet Francis Ledwidge, known as the Poet of the Blackbird, who served as a soldier in the British Army fighting in World War 1 and was killed at the third battle of Ypres on the 31 July 1917 just seventeen days before his thirtieth birthday. The site gives information on the life of the poet, his birthplace Slane, and the Francis Ledwidge Museum. His first volume of fifty poems, Songs of the Fields, was published while he was still a serving soldier with the British Army in 1915. Three months after his death in 1917 his second volume of poems appeared, Songs of Peace, and thirty three more poems under the title, Last Songs, came out in 1918. His Complete Poems, numbering 122,were published a year later, in 1919. Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany, his patron and friend, was mainly responsible for the collection of these poems and all four volumes were published by Herbert Jenkins, London. 'A blackbird singing On a moss upholstered stone, Bluebells swinging, Shadows wildly blown, A song in the wood, A ship on the sea, The song was for you And the ship was for me'. Museum Opening Hours Museum will be closed on Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th December for on site filming. It will reopen on Thursday (10-3.30 pm)and close on Friday 15th December at 1pm for Christmas and winter break.The museum will reopen on Monday 12th February 2024.

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