coole park gardens

Coole Park is the former home of Lady Augusta Gregory, a great friend of W.B. Yeats and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. It's located about 3km north of the county Galway town of Gort and is operated by the National Parks & Wildlife Service. It spans about 1,000 acres and includes 6km of nature trails, 7 woods and of course Coole Lake.
Coole House, since demolished, was a focal point in the Celtic Literary Revival at the turn of the century. The initials of notable visitors to Coole House can be seen on the famous Autograph Tree.
This tree on which Lady Gregory invited her literary guests to carve their initials, is now the centre of attraction of the great walled garden in the Nature Trail at Coole Woods. The initials gently fade with passing time, but with a little effort, you can still make out the flamboyant style of George Bernard Shaw among the more cryptic carvings of J.M. Synge, Augustus John, An Craoibhin Aoibhinn (Douglas Hyde, first President of Ireland) A.E. (G.W.