A Child's Heaven

Boyhood. We spent countless summer hours catching minnows. They were the most happy, carefree times of my life. Maybe that’s why work doesn’t do it for me; empty hours filled with the heat of the sun and the buzzing of bumble bees in a field of buttercups and a sparkling stream running through it: that’s my idea of heaven.

Then and Now


Light cavorting on the stream,
choruses of flies on dung,
the flush green of Roscommon fields.

Whole afternoons I would spend
watching minnows dart
beneath those smidereens of sunlight.

Larder to larder, cold flowing weed,
combed fresh opulence.
No trickery in a jam jar; dull brown they died.

This morning sitting in Dublin;
smidereens of sunlight played on the ceiling
and I remembered this.

Blessed with lots of dull weather

I’m walking along Murvagh beach just south of Donegal town. It’s all but empty; a beautiful stretch, maybe two miles of pristine sandy coastline; undeveloped, unpolluted, unlittered. Looking to the southwest, Mullaghmore juts into the sea, Ben Whiskin and Ben Bulben loom above in varying shades of watercolour blue.

Ben Bulben, the most majestic gravestone imaginable; Yeats is buried at its foot under the words “ Cast a cold eye/On life, on death/Horseman, pass by!”. And not far beyond, but out of view, is the town of Sligo, arguably the most beautifully situated town in Ireland, being, as it is, between lake, mountain and sea.

Just south of Murvagh are two similarly beautiful stretches of sandy beach, Rosnowlagh and, on the other side of Ballyshannon, Tullan Strand.

Imagine these beaches at lower latitudes: a promenade of tacky bars and discos blairing music, chippers, souvenir shops with shamrock emblazoned ashtrays and woolly lerechauns, on the beach lines of deck chairs at ten euros each, grim multi-story appartment blocks, long stretches of beach cordoned off for different hotels, pedal boats, hawkers stopping you every few minutes, and the sea outside cut up with speed boats, banana boats and various other money-making geegaws.

I suppose in recessionary times this might have some appeal; but today there is only the marvellous beauty of the place, unspoiled for now, and a feeling of gratitude for dull Irish weather.

The Muse

When people are in love their minds keep turning like washing machines. Thoughts and emotions going round and around, the accompanying commentary with them. No wonder then that so much poetry has come from individuals with love issues.

Visit

When I am sleeping
you come
softly over these stones;
I turn deeper.
You slip words into my ears,
liquid syllables,
sickles sliding down.

Night-time turns drunk;
longing for more,
your tongue to enwrap me;
I turn deeper.
You trickle down dreams;
our limbs braided,
we slip into one.

Ruins

There is a particular atmosphere that pervades the ruins of cottages throughout rural Ireland. I think it has to do with their former humbleness, sometimes their isolation,the fact that it our own (and not so distant) history and also knowing that the famine emptied them and left them bleak reminders of our impoverished past.

I am drawn to them: to recreate the rooms in my mind, furnish them, family and belongings, visualise what it was to read by the light coming through that window, sit at the hearth, drop the head to avoid the lintel coming through the front door.

When the ridges can still be seen in the vegetable plot or a line of fuschia still survives outside the door delineating what was the extent of their patch, it is doubly poignant. The most moving place in Ireland is, I think, the deserted village on Achill. A huddle of about 100 ruined cottages. You get a strong sense of what it was to be in a community living so closely together. While standing there, and drawing on what you know from books like Peig or maybe the film “Man of Aran”, you people the streets quite easily; the place does it for you.

The mental images can be extremely vivid, the feeling very strong: a haunting sadness, and somehow a memory. And because you know it you do not want to leave soon.
Ireland is littered with these ruins. Like holy wells, they transport you to another place, a more thoughtful place. It is good that they survive.

Flickr has a number of photographs of the deserted village at Slievemore on Achill Island and numerous others of ruins througout Ireland.

from Sunfire

The hunch-doubled thorns,
ingrown pantries
dung-puddled;
the moss-stone walls
tumble-gapped.

The nettle-cracked doorway,
lintel-fallen
byre-footed;
the cloud curtained windows
elder-berried.

The stone-sheltered air
bumbled still,
ruin-reverent;
the submerged garden ridges
dumb-founded.

At Naomh Einne's Well

One of the strangest looking holy wells in Ireland is very close to Father Ted’s house in the Burren. The frames of old electrical appliances are nailed onto trees serving \as frames for religious pictures. At least that’s the way it was a number of year’s ago when I visited.
Naomh Einne’s well is on Inis Oirr. It was probably a youngster supplementing his pocket money. The matchstick ladder was a quirky little addition. I wonder if the clear circles left behind fazed him. This poem was included in “Turn Your Head” (Dedalus Press)

At Naomh Einne’s Well

Kneeling down, the jacket off,
shirt sleeves rolled to the oxter,
he slipped his arm into the water,
scooped out the price of a pint,
then thought the better of it
and decided he’d have two.

Then again the following Tuesday
and the following Tuesday too
till there were only clear circles
and coppers on the green bottom,
a bowl in a gap in the wall,
a cross in another with a ladder
of matchsticks and thread.

GEANTRAI TRATHNONA BEAG

Chuir Nuala N Gallachóir as na Doire Beaga an gaeilge ar an dán seo agus 's é mo thuairim go bhfuil sé i bhfad nios fearr sa gaeilge.Tá brón orm go bhfuil na fadai as lathair sa piosa seo.

GEANTRAI
TRATHNONA BEAG

Solas min nona
Ag cimilt an uisce;
Mise agus tusa
Ag imeacht thar bhraid
Faoi scathlan na gcrann
Ar phreamhaigh cois abhann,
Eala,
Go h-uaisneach
Ag cosaint a criche:
Eiti mall triallach na gcorrghlas
Ar leathadh na speir;
Noin bheag agus deire lae -
Cach anachta faoi choim na h-oiche.

Sky, Bog, Mountain

I think Irish skies are stunning. The combination of bogland, mountain, lake and sky in our part of Donegal is frequently breathtaking. These were taken just north of Barnesmore Gap, Kay took the third near Lough Mourne.

Hidden Irish Treasures

Fore, Co Westmeath came to the fore,(couldn’t resist), on radio last week. The conversation widened out to unknown treasures (destinations worth visiting) around Ireland.

Certainly Fore is beautiful and, like Dysert O’Dea, unexploited. To my mind Clonmacnoise has lost its charm, thanks to the powers plonking a visitor centre on top of it. Same at Mellifont Abbey. How nice it was to be able to walk casually and unaccosted into these wonderful places without having to pay. It gave me a sense of pride my country's heritage. Now I feel cordoned off from it, and the admission charges are an imposition on what was, to me, part of the landscape's grandeur like Ben Bulben's escarpment.

No, I’m not against visitor centres, let’s have more of them, but not barring the way into what used to be ours.

So here are a few alternatives which to the best of my knowledge don't charge at the door: Kilmacduagh Abbey near Gort, Monasterboice in Louth, Inis Murray in Sligo, Holy Island on Lough Derg, Jerpoint Abbey in Co Kilkenny, Ballintubber Abbey in Mayo, Abbeyknockmoy in Galway and Duiske Abbey in Graiguenamanagh.

Finally, as a Roscommoner, I can also recommend a visit to Roscommon's 12th century abbey and castle and to the museum in the Square as a very nice way to fill in a day.