How WB Yeats resonated with Korea and established a bond spanning the world

In a shallow dell in front of the giant War Memorial of Korea in Seoul stands a squat hexagon of black marble with a map of Ireland carved into the top. This is the Irish Memorial, commemorating all those of Irish birth and heritage who died in the 1950-1953 Korean War when South Korea and the United Nations, led by the United States, fought North Korea and China.

Ireland was not yet part of the United Nations but many from all over Ireland fought with the Royal Ulster Rifles, which was made up equally of Protestants and Catholics. At least 109 Irish-born members of the regiment, which is now subsumed in the Royal Irish Rifles, died in the war, most of them at the hands of bayonet-armed Chinese soldiers in the Battle of Happy Valley outside Seoul in January 1951.

The memorial, which also marks seven Columban Fathers and an Irish Anglican nun who were killed during the war, is the only official monument in Seoul to the links between Ireland and Korea. But, as Leo Varadkar and other ministers visit on a trade mission this week, there are reminders throughout the city of the deep affinity between the two countries in the shops and advertisements for Innisfree, one of the leading K-beauty skincare brands.

WB Yeats was first translated into Korean in 1918 by Kim Eok, one of a group of poets and intellectuals in the early 20th century who were interested in the Irish Literary Revival.

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“It was probably due to a strong sense of empathy. Ireland and Korea had many geographical and historical similarities, and there were similar struggles for national independence. Ireland endured 750 years of British colonial rule, while Korea suffered from ruthless Japanese colonial rule for 36 years. Both small nations lost their language but retained their national spirit and fought until the end for independence, which likely resonated with them,” says Lee Sae Soon, professor emeritus at Chung-An University.

“By the 1960s, recordings of Yeats’s recitations became widespread, and I vividly remember hearing Yeats’s voice for the first time in my English class in 1968. Apart from some more obscure poems based on concepts like ‘mask’ or ‘gyres’, Yeats’s narrative poems were accessible and resonated with a wide audience.”

The Yeats Society of Korea publishes a peer-reviewed academic journal three times a year and the James Joyce Society of Korea publishes an equivalent journal twice a year. Seokmoo Choi, the society’s president and a professor of English at Korea University, says Joyce is second only to Shakespeare in popularity and the subject of almost 60 Korean PhDs.

“We understand James Joyce as [an] Irish writer in a colonial setting, so we like to read him in terms of post-colonial theory. In many ways, we share the same experiences with Irish people. James Joyce felt just as [the] Korean people felt. James Joyce challenged the British way of thinking. He says that Irish people are physically or mentally colonised and James Joyce tried to decolonise those Irish people. In his writings, he tried to challenge this British way of thinking,” he says.

Seokmoo includes several Irish writers in his fiction course at Korea University and many are popular, although students reacted awkwardly when he introduced Sally Rooney’s Normal People in their first semester.

“They were very embarrassed by the book. They are interested in the content of the book but they do not like to read it in class. They like William Trevor’s stories, they like that kind of moving story. Or John Banville’s stories. Students like those kind of books. They like to discover something, they like to use their brains to solve the mystery of the book,” he says.

Like Ireland, South Korea has moved from being a relatively poor country to being one of the richest within a couple of generations and the international success of K-pop and K-drama mirrors that of Ireland’s cultural exports.

“Just leave us alone and we can prosper. Just like Irish people,” says Seokmoo.