Off Ardigna Bay it came slower and slower,
And his corpse was clay-cold as we sighted Tramore.
At Passage we waked him, and now he doth lie
In the lap of the land he beheld but to die.
The desire for home that moves and torments the exile is an historic and unavoidable part of our inheritance. Winifred Letts, a gentle lady-poet from the south-east, did tenderly reflect on it:
I think if I lay dying in some land
Where Ireland is no more than just a name,
My soul would travel back to find that strand
From whence it came.
I’d see the harbour in the evening light,
The old man staring at some distant ship,
The fishing-boats they fasten left and right
Beside the slip.
The sea-wrack lying on the wind-swept shore,
The grey thorn bushes growing in the sand,
Our Wexford coast from Arklow to Cahore –
My native land.
The little houses climbing up the hill.
Sea daisies growing in the sandy grass,
The tethered goats that wait large-eyed and still
To watch you pass.
The women at the well with dripping pails,
Their men colloguing by the harbour walls,
The coils of rope, the nets, the old brown sails
I know them all.
And then the Angelus – I’d surely see
The swaying bell against a golden sky,
So God, Who kept the love of home in me,
Would let me die.
And now to find, perhaps, the Ireland the exiles wished to return to. Francis MacManus, as I have said, occasionally allowed himself to relax into verse. And here he is praising his own country in words that he entitled ‘Excerpts from an Irish Sequence’:
Praise God for Ireland, so – he said,
and raised his hand;
a poet he was whose withered heart and head
had one time answered as one cry
to every stir and sigh
of the quick, and the importunate dead,
to the windy fields and the high
desolate places of the isolate, seathundering, wrysmiling land;
he raised his hand:
Praise God, – says he,
calling a ritual, twofingered blessing
as from a liturgy.
Therefore, like daybreak, let his wishing spread
from here to the tufted sands,
and the shell-bestrewn silver and yellow strands,
from here to the dread
rockresisted charge of the western sea
where lies uncharted mystery;
– spread like the allmothering air
over all your people and mine; over the young and the old,
the dark, swarthy, grey, red and fair,
let the blessing unfold:
on craft and calling, profession and art and trade,
on all who make and all that ever is made;
on thinker, teacher, poet, priest, soldier and clerk,
on farmer, ploughman and herdsman, all who work;
on city and street, as tired as an old shuttered room,
on every long valley whence rivers run down to a tide,
to the quays and the bales and the stealthy slow glide
of the trafficking ships, and the dim muffled boom
of the lusty, the free,
the allfathering sea:
on the fishers who ride
with the nets in the night
above forests of weed and the round
immaculate shining white
bones of the drowned
bedded deep,
unrotten,
forgotten
in sleep.
Praise God for Ireland, so – says he,
and raised a blessing as from a liturgy.
Asleep is the street. One solitary cart rattles out.
The hot sweaty face of the driver is dark in the dusk.
He thumps the creel with his fist and out of his mouth rolls the brusque
bedamning abuse of the drinker who named him a lout;
and he settles his cap with a rakish jerk of his thumb
and fingers the fob of his vest for the wrack of his pounds,
and sways and grows wroth and mutters how beggarly hounds
would drink your health deep as long as the money would come.
The mare has her head; and drowsy and bothered he hears
the fair’s hollow hubbub
since cockcrow at cold showery morn
with one thrush on the thorn
to the arguments, squabbles and jeers
in the dark crowded pub.
Good morrow! God save you! I wouldn’t be seen with the beast!
The lowing of cattle creeps mistily up through the air.
I’ll not drink another. Enough is as good as a feast.
By God, there’s not much as a hap’orth to do on this fair.
Come all ye lads and lassies, and listen to me awhile.
This drink has me ruined, but come, man, a half-one or ale?
If Dublin would leave us alone we’d ride grandly in style.
Push up on the bench and listen to this for a tale.
Praise.
The stars weave a tale. A parish is belled up from sleep
by the howl of a dog that leaps to the walk of the dead;
the howl calls replies; and mongrels by tinkers’ fires creep
from the tents and the vans, and prowl on the stiff legs of dread.
And deep in a ditchful of ferns, cracked itchy Tom Straw
plucks his rags with the cold and clutches his dirty black cans;
‘O Jesus, protect me,’ prays he, ‘they’ll not credit I saw
the grand lady’s ghost and held her poor hands in my hands.’
Praise.
A train rumbling east trails a palely lit smoke through a glen.
There’s flame in the sky where the Liffey retreats from the tide.
The day fills the fields where the shiny damp cattle complain.
Slow over Allen the clouds with the rainlances ride.
How many men for Dublin?
Six men and ten,
shot in the dawnlight,
called to life again.
Wake up the mansions,
wake up the slums,
wake up the navvies,
mickeydazzlers, jems,
paperboys and joxers,
polismen and tarts,
butchers and bakers,
bankers and clerks,
dockers and coalmen,
milkmen and maids,
civilservants, busmen,
drapers and drays.
Steam up the hooters,
light is in the east, open up the churchdoors,
here comes the priest.
How many men for Dublin?
There they walk again!
Rebels in the ruinlight,
six men and ten.
Praise.
Ireland’s a rock that men scoop out for their bread;
Ireland’s a door where the living collogue with the dead;
Ireland’s a river, a valley, a young nation, an old,
a house guarded by heroes, a fair where heroes are sold.
Ireland’s a sow that farrows; then feeds on her young;
Ireland’s a queen for all the fine songs that were sung;
Ireland’s a speech, a mouthful of words cried in rage
by a rebel who gets a hempen cravat as his wage.
Ireland’s a south wind, a west wind, a blowing wet morn,
a ridge of potatoes, ditches, a few roods of corn.
Ireland’s a priest with a chalice, a scourge and a bell;
a monk who prays prone on the stony floor of his cell;
a singer’s regret, a dream of an exile who makes
a hovel a castle, and princes of randy old rak
es.
Ireland’s a pasture where men are measured by breed,
Ireland’s a ploughman, a plough, and a handful of seed.
Praise God, – says he,
spreading a ritual twofingered blessing
as from a liturgy.
Let us stay for a bit with Francis MacManus. He was always good company. And now that he has brought us back to Ireland, and Mayo, we can, in his company, watch the pilgrims climbing the Reek. Twice in my life I was among those pilgrims. That was away back when I was able to walk.
Then from the Reek, and St Patrick, MacManus will bring us to the Oak of Kildare and St Brigid.
And then to the tragic, and splendid, city of Limerick. There’s a lot of history around Limerick, as any Limerickman, or any man from anywhere, can tell you. But first to the Reek:
ASCENT OF THE REEK
Pilgrims, O pilgrims, where are you going?
Up to the Reek, to the holy man’s mountain.
Keep your stick in your fist or you’ll tumble forever,
tumble and toss with the torrents of water,
water that’s brown with the bog’s bitter drainings,
water that scours out the rocks like a penance.
But Patrick keeps guard from the cold windy summit,
watching with prayer like the sunrise about him,
his casula wet with the labour of sorrow,
his bell hoarse with ringing damnation to demons,
for fear we should fail, we the nation he fashioned;
watching forever, his eyes never weary,
wrestling with devils and angels and Heaven,
he, who accounted himself sinner of sinners.
Pilgrims, O pilgrims, how far to the summit?
Now our breath breaks like the shudder of death,
now the sharp stones are an ambush of demons,
now the cold morning cuts heat from our hearts.
Pilgrims, O pilgrims, the darkness is lifting,
daybreak is polishing ocean’s dulled mirror,
islands will gleam like the rivets on silver.
But prayers must be said till the heart groans in anguish,
limbs must be strained till the flesh is no rebel,
bones must be tried till the will is the master,
slopes must be climbed till the body is civil.
Thirst is a prayer that makes the tongue kindle;
hunger a penance that cries in the belly.
Pilgrims, O pilgrims, look down on the ocean,
morning uncovers the islands to glory.
Pilgrims, O pilgrims, here is your haven.
Lost are the torrents spuming sour water;
below is the bog that hugged the heels evilly;
below are the boulders that huddled to hinder us;
below are the flints that dared us and prattled.
But look to that man who bares his knees bravely,
kneels to the stones while his mouth mutters Aves.
(God save ye, pilgrims, here Patrick guards us!)
Look at that woman, old as the mountain,
swinging her beads to the shake of her fingers.
(Patrick is watching over all Ireland)
Look at that girl who skips like a sparrow,
brown as a berry, laughing and gabbing.
Patrick he guards them all from his mountain,
guarding with prayers like those strong winds about him,
his casula wet with the love that melts heaven,
his bell beating devils to rout in infernos,
for fear we should fail, we his nation, his people,
watching for ever, his eyes like the planets,
Patrick the slave and the master of Ireland.
Pilgrims, O pilgrims, whence are you coming?
Back from Croagh Patrick’s mountain high vigil.
Back from the flight of the darkness at morning.
Back from a word to the maker of Ireland.
THE OAK OF KILDARE
All night the woods were talking:
colloquy of nodding heads till matins
levelled light through sparkling bracken,
caught the tardy poachers napping,
teased the convent cocks to bragging,
and hushed blown boughs with the din of morning.
All night the trees colloguing,
mouth to ear, implored an answer.
‘Tell, O tell, who was she walking, daring
dayfall to a candle,’
murmured gravely swaying elms;
‘probing thistledown alighting were less
gentle than her sandals.’
Beeches swung like happy bellmen:
‘Over in the claustral brambles
blackbirds tucked up drooping habits,
chirped and hurried, drowsy
brethren badgered by a prowling
abbot; hurried, ranked the boughs, sang,
and sang, weaving light above the pathway
till the woods with glim-note, hymn-flame, star-chant,
song-flare ran and rang.’
‘She,’ the ash said.
– a skitting whisper –
‘is a king’s maid,
a chieftain’s surely,
slipped through a dun-gate
to inveigle a lover.’
‘Look!’ cried the yew, ‘but those skulking trappers
will creep empty-satchelled back to their slatterns,
and search for the hag whose viper cursing
poisoned the night for snaring and netting.
Who can forget the warren folk’s merriment,
eyes like the sun on dew-polished berries,
ripe to the glint of no curse but her blessing?’
‘Who?’ sighed the woods.
‘Who?’ all together,
Thus all night the woods were talking,
a colloquy of nodding heads since vespers.
Only the oak knew Brighid the bright nun walking,
mothering as evening air,
through the flocked glebe-land and among the talking
trees in windy, cropped Kildare.
ST JOHN’S TOWER, LIMERICK
Only the Shannon’s hurtling water,
only these ramparts that crannied lichens climb,
can tell how fighters fled from sterile slaughter,
and God intoned Amen to their time.
River, tell me, river, did a nation topple when swordsmen
wrestled with the ladders and tumbled to the pikemen?
Ramparts, tell me, ramparts, was an epoch dust and rubble
when the lords sailed from Ireland to mix in foreign trouble?
Our fathers, are they fathers? Or shadows from a story
finished on these ramparts watching Limerick town,
while we, with empty pockets, pick their purse of glory?
River, tell me, rampart, are we heirs to old renown?
Limerick fell. And this, only this I know,
only a hovelled rabble was left to build from slaughter,
only ruined ramparts where patient grasses grow,
only the Shannon’s hurtling water.
I had a friend once, a Jesuit of all things, who highly disapproved of G.K. Chesterton. For this reason: that particular Jesuit did not like long walks. He preferred sitting down, and he said that Chesterton sang the praises of long walks that, fat as Chesterton was, he was never able to take. He was talking and, of course, joking about the ballad about the rolling English road: The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier …’ And more of the same.
Perhaps our roundabout road to Granard Moat might, by now, have made some of us footsore. But bear up. And take courage from the lines of C.J. Boland, a sound man from the Suir Valley. And from the conversation he overheard from two travellers.
If you wish, you may sing this to the tune to which Percy French put his meditations on Hannigan’s Aunt:
‘All over the world,’ the traveller said
,
‘In my wanderings I have been;
But these two lookin’ eyes have seen.
From the haunts of the ape an’ marmozet,
To the lands of the Fellaheen.’
Says the other, ‘I’ll lay you an even bet
You were never in Farranaleen.’
‘I’ve hunted the woods of Seringapatam,
An’ sailed in the Polar Seas.
I fished for a week in the Gulf of Siam
An’ lunched on the Chersonese.
I’ve lived in the valleys of fair Cashmere,
Under Himalay’s snowy ridge.’
Says the other impatiently, ‘Looka here,
Were you ever at Laffan’s Bridge?’
‘I’ve lived in the land where tobacco is grown,
In the suburbs of Santiago;
An’ I spent two years in Sierra Leone,
An’ in Terra Del Fuego.
I walked across Panama all in a day,
Ah me, but the road was rocky!’
The other replied, ‘Will you kindly say,
Were you ever at Horse-and-Jockey?
‘I’ve borne my part in a savage fray,
When I got this wound from a Lascar;
We were bound just then from Mandalay
For the isle of Madagascar.
Ah! the sun never tired of shining there,
An’ the trees canaries sang in.’
‘What of that?’ says the other, ‘Sure I’ve a pair,
And there’s lots more over in Drangan.’
‘I’ve hunted tigers in Turkestan,
In Australia the kangaroos;
An’ I lived six months as medicine man
To a tribe of Katmandoos.
An’ I’ve stood on the scene of Olympic games,
Where the Grecians showed their paces.’
The other replied, ‘Now tell me, James,
Were you ever at Fethard Races?
‘Don’t talk of your hunting in Yucatan,
Or your fishing off Saint Helena;
I’d rather see young lads hunting the wran
In the hedges of Tubberheena.
No doubt the scenes of a Swiss canton
Have a passable sort of charm,
But give me a sunset on Sliabh na mBan
As I Rode by Granard Moat Page 18