WB Yeats Takes Centre Stage in Bedford Park Celebration
Irish composers feature in an evening of music, poetry and local history
Some of the participants in I Dreamt I Dwelt: Irish Composers, WB Yeats and Bedford Park’s Heyday
October 7, 2025
As part of the ongoing Bedford Park 150th anniversary programme, I Dreamt I Dwelt: Irish Composers, WB Yeats and Bedford Park’s Heyday offers a rich evening of music, poetry, and local history. Hosted in the Arts & Crafts splendour of St Michael & All Angels Church on Wednesday 22 October, the event brings together Irish Heritage musicians and the WB Yeats Bedford Park Project to explore the area's vibrant cultural legacy.
Performers include soprano Aimee Kearney, tenor Stephen Walker, and pianists Georgina Cassidy and Brian Hughes (Irish Heritage’s Artistic Director), presenting works by Irish composers who shaped London’s musical scene in the late 19th century. The programme features settings of Yeats and other Bedford Park poets, alongside traditional airs and Victorian favourites.
Irish poet and broadcaster Cahal Dallat, founder of the Yeats Bedford Park Project, will introduce the evening with insights into the area's musical and literary heritage—including the story of a Bedford Park lyricist whose song appears in The Banshees of Inisherin.
WB Yeats spent his formative years in Bedford Park, moving there with his family in 1879 at the age of 14. The Yeatses lived at 3 Blenheim Road, surrounded by a community of artists, musicians, and writers. The poet’s early exposure to Irish folklore, English Romanticism, and the aesthetic ideals of the Arts & Crafts movement deeply influenced his creative development. His sisters Lily and Lolly were pioneers in the decorative arts, and his brother Jack B. Yeats became one of Ireland’s most celebrated painters. Bedford Park’s utopian spirit and artistic energy helped shape Yeats’s vision of cultural revival and poetic modernism.
The event also coincides with the Bedford Park Society’s exhibition The Community at Bedford Park: Ahead of the World in Everything?, which will be on display in the church. Guests are encouraged to arrive early to enjoy a glass of wine and explore the exhibition.
Tickets for the evening cost £20 (including wine) with under 35s paying £5. They can be booked through Irish Heritage.
St Michael & All Angels Church is on Bath Road, (W4 1TX) (opposite Turnham Green Tube).
You can read more about the Yeats link with Chiswick in this article by Cahal Dallat written for Chiswickw4.com.
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