The ship, at the time unnamed, was ordered from German shipbuilder Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft in May 2016 at a cost of €144 million.

[5][6] The deck structure was built in Poland and assembled on the hull by floating cranes Matador III and Taklift 4 after the launch.

[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] In August, The Irish Times reported that her delivery would likely not take place until October,[15] but work was further delayed and she did not begin sea trials until late in the month.

Yeats made her much delayed first commercial sailing on 22 January 2019 when she struck the berth attempting to dock at Holyhead leaving a dent in the ship and bending the ramp in the impact delaying the offloading by some time and forcing Irish Ferries to put the booked passengers on the Stena sailing to Dublin,[19] just over a year after her hull was launched.

[2] Her vehicle deck has an area of about 3,500 lane meters, giving her a maximum capacity of 1,216 cars or 165 trucks.