LÉ William Butler Yeats P63

LÉ William Butler Yeats is latest Offshore Patrol Vessel and represents an updated and lengthened version of the original RÓISÍN Class OPVs which were also designed and built to our specifications by Babcock Marine Appledore and she is truly a state of the art ship. She is built and fitted out to the highest international standards in terms of safety, equipment fit, technological innovation and crew comfort. She is also designed to cope with the rigors of the North East Atlantic.

L.É. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS was commissioned into the naval fleet in October 2016. Since then she has been constantly engaged in Maritime Security and Defence patrolling of the Irish coast. She has also deployed to the Defence Forces mission in the Mediterranean from to July to October 2017, rescuing 704 persons and recovering the bodies of 3 deceased.

Ship's Name

The naming of a naval vessel is a hugely significant event as it lays the foundation of the ship’s character and spirit. Wherever the ship goes, whatever ports she visits, her name will echo in the minds and memories of the people who visit and see her. Traditionally Irish naval vessels have been named after mythical figures from Ireland’s heroic past.

The naming of LÉ WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS follows a recent departure from the mythical tradition in that the P60 class of ship will be named after a world renowned Irish writer.

William Butler Yeats has been described as the oddest and bravest of revolutionaries. A member of the Anglo-Irish tradition in Ireland, he was a nationalist at heart and passionately believed in achieving an independent Ireland through cultural revolution. He was a key figure in the Irish literary revival. His play “Kathleen Ní Houlihan” was said to have contributed towards the revolutionary fervour which culminated in the Easter Rising in 1916. Yeats agonised over this, regretting that his work could have sent young men out to shoot and be shot.

Nevertheless his vision of Ireland was that of a peaceful, pluralist, tolerant and democratic society. Yeats did not conform to the blood sacrifice ideal and wanted to live in an independent Ireland and shape the development of that fledgling nation.

Yeats supported the Treaty and was appointed as a senator at a time when such a position carried certain risks. Yeats, through his literary and political endeavours together with his international profile, was of central importance to the evolving sense of Irish cultural identity.