William Butler Yeats was born to Protestant parents on 13 June, 1865, in Sandymount, County Dublin . His father was the portrait painter John Butler Yeats; his mother Susan Mary (n é e Pollexfen) was a descendant of a prosperous Anglo-Irish family who owned a milling and shipping business. In 1867, the family moved to London where he was educated at Godolphin School in Hammersmith, London.

Yeats's holidays were spent with his grandparents in Sligo [Sligo is in north-west Ireland ] , where he learnt Irish fairytales and songs, and formed a belief in fairies. These things were later reflected in his poetry.

On returning home to Ireland in 1881 with his family, Yeats attended Erasmus Smith High School in Dublin. His father's studio was located close by, and Yeats would often visit his father at his studio and talk to the other painters and writers that visited. Then, in 1884, he enrolled at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin, despite his father's wishes for him to attend Trinity College like his ancestors. He was particularly interested in the work of the authors Samuel Ferguson and James Clarence Mangan. In 1885 he submitted an essay called 'The Poetry