Kiltartan Cross is a place in Ireland. It is the name of a barony in Galway County of western Ireland (a barony is kind of smaller county). Kiltartan was home to one Lady Gregory, a very close friend of Yeats’ who had this really awesome estate called Coole Park. (It was cool in all senses of the word.) Yeats spent lots of time at Coole Park, which is why the volume that contains this poem “An Irish Airman… “ is called The Wild Swans at Coole. The Irish airman named in the poem’s title is Lady Gregory’s son, Robert Gregory, who was killed in the First World War.
