As I Rode by Granard Moat

by Benedict Kiely

  Not a single hope have I seen fulfilled

  For the blood we spilled when we cast the die;

  And the future we painted in brightness and pride

  Has the present belied, and shall still belie.

  In this far-off country, this city dreary,

  I languished weary, and sad, and sore,

  Till the flower of youth in glooms o’ershaded

  Grew seared, and faded for evermore.

  Oh my land! from thee driven – our old flag furled –

  I renounced the world when I went from thee;

  My heart lingers still on its native strand,

  And American land holds nought for me.

  Through a long life contriving, hoping, striving,

  Driven and driving, leading and led;

  I have rescued nought but my honour only,

  And this aged, lonely, and whitening head.

  There is a West beyond the Irish West. Shane Leslie wrote well about the work of William Carleton, the contriver of the Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry: ‘He caught his types before Ireland made the greatest plunge in her history and the Famine had cleaned her to the bone. For the hardiest of the Race rose up and went away into the West, of which their storytellers had been telling them for a thousand years.’

  Gerald Griffin, a poet and novelist from the same period as Carleton, but a very, very different sort of man, wrote his own version of the legend of the dreamer who sailed from our West to seek the Promised Land or Ultima Thule or the Isle of the Blest. (Griffin himself gave up the search and joined the Irish Christian Brothers to find his own Isle of the Blest.)

  On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,

  A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;

  Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,

  And they called it Hy-Brasil, the isle of the Blest,

  From year unto year on the ocean’s blue rim,

  The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;

  The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,

  And it looked like an Eden, away, far away!

  A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,

  In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;

  From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,

  For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasil was blest.

  He heard not the voices that called from the shore –

  He heard not the rising wind’s menacing roar;

  Home, kindred, and safety, he left on that day,

  And he sped to Hy-Brasil, away, far away.

  Moon rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,

  O’er the faint rim of distance reflected its smile;

  Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore

  Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;

  Lone evening came down on the wanderer’s track,

  And to Ara again he looked timidly back;

  Rash dreamer, return! O ye winds of the main,

  Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.

  Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss

  To barter thy calm life of labour and peace.

  The warning of reason was spoken in vain,

  He never re-visited Ara again!

  Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,

  And he died on the waters, away, far away.

  And now that we have entreated Gerald Griffin to join us on the Road Round Ireland, let us allow him to celebrate the lovely Limerick land he came from:

  O sweet Adare! O lovely vale!

  O soft retreat of sylvan splendour!

  Nor summer sun, nor morning gale,

  E’er hailed a scene more softly tender.

  How shall I tell the thousand charms

  Within thy verdant bosom dwelling,

  Where, lulled in Nature’s fostering arms,

  Soft peace abides and joy excelling!

  Ye morning airs, how sweet at dawn

  The slumbering boughs your song awakens,

  Or linger o’er the silent lawn,

  With odour of the harebell taken!

  Thou rising sun, how richly gleams

  Thy smile from far Knockfierna’s mountain,

  O’er waving woods and bounding streams,

  And many a grove and glancing fountain!

  Ye clouds of noon, how freshly there,

  When summer heats the open meadows,

  O’er parched hill and valley fair,

  All coolly lie your veiling shadows!

  Ye rolling shades and vapours grey,

  Slow creeping o’er the golden haven,

  How soft ye seal the eye of day,

  And wreath the dusky brow of even!

  In sweet Adare the jocund Spring

  His notes of odorous joy is breathing;

  The wild birds in the woodland sing,

  The wild flowers in the vale are wreathing.

  There winds the Maigue, as silver-clear,

  Among the elms so sweetly flowing;

  There, fragrant in the early year,

  Wild roses on the bank are blowing.

  The wild-duck seeks the sedgy bank,

  Or dives beneath the glistening billow,

  Where graceful droop, and glistening dank,

  The osier bright and rustling willow.

  The hawthorn scents the leafy dale,

  In thicket lone the stag is belling,

  And sweet along the echoing vale

  The sound of vernal joy is swelling.

  Gerald Griffin was a brooding sort of man and much possessed by death. Or, certainly, when he looked on the Vanities of Life he had a very clear vision of the skull beneath the skin. Which, we may guess, was why he finally burned his manuscripts and turned his back on the world and took to the religious life.

  And Griffin, in his time, turned his eyes on a problem that has beset us then and that, God help us, we still have.

  At that time it was as far to the south as the fine town of Bandon which then had a strong name for what, for some odd reason, is still called Loyalism:

  ORANGE AND GREEN

  The night was falling dreary,

  In merry Bandon town,

  When, in his cottage weary,

  An Orangeman lay down.

  The summer sun in splendour

  Had set upon the vale,

  And shouts of ‘No surrender!’

  Arose upon the gale.

  Beside the waters, laving

  The feet of aged trees,

  The Orange banners waving,

  Flew boldly in the breeze –

  In mighty chorus meeting,

  A hundred voices join,

  And fife and drum were beating

  The Battle of the Boyne.

  Ha! toward his cottage hieing,

  What form is speeding now,

  From yonder thicket flying,

  With blood upon his brow?

  ‘Hide – hide me, worthy stranger,

  Though green my colour be,

  And, in the day of danger,

  May Heaven remember thee!

  ‘In yonder vale contending,

  Alone against that crew,

  My life and limbs defending,

  An Orangemen I slew;

  Hark! hear that fearful warning,

  There’s death in every tone –

  O save my life till morning,

  And Heaven prolong your own!’

  The Orange heart was melted

  In pity to the Green;

  He heard the tale, and felt it

  His very soul within.

  ‘Dread not that angry warning

  Though death be in its tone –

  I’ll save your life till morning,

  Or I will lose my own.’

  Now, round his lowly dwelling,

  The angry torrent pressed,

  A hundred voices swelling,

  The Orangeman addressed –

  ‘Arise, arise, and follo
w

  The chase along the plain!

  In yonder stony hollow

  Your only son is slain!’

  With rising shouts they gather

  Upon the track amain,

  And leave the childless father

  Aghast with sudden pain.

  He seeks the righted stranger

  In covert where he lay –

  ‘Arise!’ he said, ‘all danger

  Is gone and past away.

  ‘I had a son – one only,

  One loved as my life,

  Thy hand has left me lonely,

  In that accursed strife.

  I pledged my word to save thee

  Until the storm should cease,

  I keep the pledge I gave thee –

  Arise, and go in peace!’

  The stranger soon departed

  From that unhappy vale;

  The father, broken-hearted,

  Lay brooding o’er that tale.

  Full twenty summers after

  To silver turned his beard,

  And yet the sound of laughter

  From him was never heard.

  The night was falling dreary

  In merry Wexford town,

  When, in his cabin, weary,

  A peasant laid him down.

  And many a voice was singing

  Along the summer vale,

  And Wexford town was ringing

  With shouts of ‘Granua Uaile!’

  Beside the waters, laving

  The feet of aged trees,

  The green flag, gaily waving,

  Was spread against the breeze –

  In mighty chorus meeting,

  Loud voices filled the town,

  And fife and drum were beating,

  ‘Down, Orangemen, lie down!’

  Hark, ’mid the stirring clangour

  That woke the echoes there,

  Loud voices, high in anger,

  Rise on the evening air.

  Like billows of the ocean,

  He sees them hurry on –

  And, ’mid the wild commotion,

  An Orangeman alone.

  ‘My hair,’ he said, ‘is hoary,

  And feeble is my hand,

  And I could tell a story

  Would shame your cruel band.

  Full twenty years and over

  Have changed my heart and brow,

  And I am grown a lover

  Of peace and concord now.

  ‘It was not thus I greeted your

  Brother of the green;

  When fainting and defeated

  I freely took him in.

  I pledged my word to save him,

  From vengeance rushing on,

  I kept the pledge I gave him,

  Though he had killed my son.’

  That aged peasant heard him,

  And knew him as he stood;

  Remembrance kindly stirred him,

  And tender gratitude.

  With gushing tears of pleasure,

  He pierced the listening train,

  ‘I’m here to pay the measure

  Of kindness back again!’

  Upon his bosom falling,

  That old man’s tears came down;

  Deep memory recalling

  That cot and fatal town.

  ‘The hand that would offend thee,

  My being first shall end;

  I’m living to defend thee,

  My saviour and my friend!’

  He said, and slowly turning,

  Addressed the wondering crowd;

  With fervent spirit burning,

  He told the tale aloud.

  Now pressed the warm beholders,

  Their aged foe to greet;

  They raised him on their shoulders

  And chaired him through the street.

  As he had saved that stranger

  From peril scowling dim,

  So in his day of danger

  Did Heaven remember him.

  By joyous crowds attended,

  The worthy pair were seen,

  And their flags that day were blended

  Of Orange and of Green.

  And may we yet live to see the day.

  But the mystery land, the West beyond our West, still beckons …

  Griffin’s hapless Aranmore may have died on the waters, away far away, but inevitably, a cute Kerryman by the name of Brendan did, according to all accounts, discover the enchanted land, beating to its magic shores not only Columbus but even the hardy Norse sea-rovers. Francis MacManus, the novelist, celebrated that saintly rover, and the Munster mountain named after him, in one of his few poems:

  PATTERN OF SAINT BRENDAN

  This is an evening for a hallowed landfall,

  The landbreeze slithers down Brandon

  Mountain where stone on stone the monkhives

  crumble and no prayers drone since twelve evangels

  voyaged to find the summer islands.

  The light withdraws over the maudlin village

  and upended curraghs upended like black cattle,

  to follow the copper Atlantic shimmer.

  O how could twelve exiles

  return from voyaging, staring at wonders and charting

  infinity, and raise dripping oars to glide

  rejoicing, chanting laudate with salty lips cracking,

  back from the peril of where the sun founders,

  to search for lost Ireland round their cold mountain.

  This is the evening. The bleat of melodeons

  buckleaps fandangos and whips

  up the hobnails to belt at the floorboards.

  Thirst gravels the gullet; lads with puffed faces

  muster a yowl for slopped foamy porter

  and grope for the pence in the fist-hoarded purses.

  Fug blears the wicks; the sergeant is strutting,

  tunic neck-open, bellyband bursting;

  Annastatia and Nellie slip off to go pairing

  at a tip and a wink to the back of the graveyard.

  Goat-music, fumes, the stamp of wild heel-bones,

  dust whirling high with the din and the fag-smoke,

  cries for a fight and calls for the sergeant,

  the anger of louts for a gombeenman’s farthing,

  follow the dayfall, out to the foundered

  islands desired from bleak Brandon Mountain.

  This is the evening, Brendan, O sailor,

  stand off the mainland, backwater the glimmer,

  though kirtles be flittered and flesh be seasalted;

  watch while this Ireland, a mirage, grows dimmer.

  What have you come for? Why cease from faring

  through paradise islands and indigo water,

  through vinland and bloomland and Caribbean glory?

  Follow your chart with the smoky sea-monsters;

  stay with the bright birds where music is pouring

  balm for the hurt souls, and Judas repentant

  sits for one day on a rock in the ocean.

  Turn from the ghostland, O great navigator;

  lower the oars for a legend

  of journeys; scan tossed

  empty horizons from pole to equator

  for Ireland, time-foundered, that Ireland has lost.

  Well, once you got to the far side of the great ocean it was imperative that you find your way back again to time-foundered Ireland. Three times, I am happy to say, I did it on grand ocean-liners and never shall I forget the excitement of seeing the great headlands of the south-west reaching out over the waves as if to embrace you and welcome you home.

  For obvious reasons that return cannot be the same by jet airliner. But you may remember that movie about the heroic Charles Lindbergh, The Spirit of St Louis. When the solo flyer came in over our south-west he could see Ireland, as the movie showed us, and very glad he was to see it. Planes, at that time, flew lower and slower.

  But when, from the decks of those three ocean-liners, I saw the
Irish headlands, I quoted to myself, or to anyone who would listen to me, Thomas D’Arcy McGee’s sad, yet triumphant, lines about the aged man, homeward bound, on a slower ship and a long time ago.

  THE HOMEWARD BOUND

  Paler and thinner the morning moon grew,

  Colder and sterner the rising wind blew;

  The pole-star had set in a forest of cloud,

  And the icicles crackled on spar and on shroud,

  When a voice from below we heard feebly cry:

  ‘Let me see, let me see my own land ere I die.

  ‘Ah, dear sailor, say, have we sighted Cape Clear?

  Can you see any sign? Is the morning light near?

  You are young, my brave boy; thanks, thanks for your hand –

  Help me up, till I get a last glimpse of the land.

  Thank God, ’tis the sun that now reddens the sky;

  I shall see, I shall see my own land ere I die.

  ‘Let me lean on your strength, I am feeble and old,

  And one half of my heart is already stone-cold.

  Forty years work a change! when I first crossed the sea

  There were few on the deck that could grapple with me;

  But my youth and my prime in Ohio went by,

  And I’m come back to see the old spot ere I die.’

  ’Twas a feeble old man, and he stood on the deck,

  His arm round a kindly young mariner’s neck,

  His ghastly gaze fixed on the tints of the east,

  As a starveling might stare at the sight of a feast.

  The morn quickly rose and revealed to his eye

  The land he had prayed to behold, and then die!

  Green, green was the shore, though the year was near done;

  High and haughty the capes the white surf dashed upon;

  A grey ruined convent was down by the strand,

  And the sheep fed afar, on the hills of the land!

  ‘God be with you, dear Ireland!’ he gasped with a sigh;

  ‘I have lived to behold you – I’m ready to die.’

  He sank by the hour, and his pulse ’gan to fail,

  As we swept by the headland of storied Kinsale;