... In my Irish memories of my first 20 years in London I shall have to use so many "I's" that I crave your indulgence beforehand. I have used up 5 already.

But first I may say that I was born in Kinvara, Co. Galway in the year 1854. I did not die in that year as is falsely recorded in a certain American book of biography. The report is not alone premature, as in Mark Twain's case, but precociously so, and dictated, no doubt, by a spite and envy that always snaps at the heels of great men. I deny the libel here and now, not only for your assurance but for the comfort of posterity.

I came to London in 1873 to take up a small appointment in the Civil Service. I have only a bowing acquaintance with big towns - Dublin and Galway to wit, and great was my eagerness to see the world-city of my readings and my dreams.

I remember as if it were yesterday the morning I dawned on the metropolis - at the unearthly hour of 5 a.m. - the empty silent streets - myself without a friend or reference, simply with a character from a priest at home that would hardly carry me far in those mansions of rank, fashion and exclusiveness whose floors must be gaping to receive me. When the cabman inquired where he should drive me to, I proudly answered "Board of Trade, 7 Whitehall Gardens", fondly assuming, I suppose, that Government clerks lived over the premises as most business people did in those days. An afternoon visitor to a Government Department might or might not succeed in waking up the officials, but when we got to the Board of Trade courtyard at No. 7 I need hardly say that it would have taken the last trumpet itself to arouse the occupants. So on the cabby's suggestion, I adjourned to Falkner's Hotel hard by in Villiers Street, for a washup and breakfast. No tablet marks the spot, but I have no doubt that the enlargement of the premises since then has been facilitated by the popularity due to the associations springing from that day.

I strolled in to the office about noon, was interviewed by an official and as I confessed complete ignorance of matters relating to ships and shipping was appropriately assigned to the Marine Department, and from that hour there dawned a new era of commercial enterprise and glory for the British Empire ...  

The Reminiscences Speech (1921) was recently published in a special edition of the Yeats Annual, No. 15 (London: Palgrave, 2002. Stg £55), with an introduction and annotations by Clare Hutton.

W B Yeats described Francis Fahy as "a very brisk cordial neat little man. Seems a king among his own people and what more does any man want."