Book review: Much-needed study on the life of our greatest poet a tour de force

Daniel Mulhall's 'Pilgrim Soul' is  based on a deep knowledge of the poetry and the years that produced it, concentrating on the huge changes that Irish society underwent in the WB Yeats' lifetime

When he retired from the Foreign Service Daniel Mulhall decided to write an accessible account of the WB Yeats’s life. Picture: Getty Images

• Pilgrim Soul: W.B. Yeats and the Ireland of His Time 
• Daniel Mulhall 
• New Island €17.95