The Star Factory

by Ciaran Carson

  A blue, small-petalled flower grew abundantly in the nearby ‘Seven Sisters’ meadow – so-called, I presume, from that salient number of sally-rod3 trees in its march hedges – and we used to gather bouquets to decorate the altar of the Virgin Mary, whose plaster statue would be brought down on the First of May from the landing window-sill it usually occupied, to be placed on a special doily on top of the parlour sideboard, and flanked by two ice-cream sundae glasses filled with these blue mayflowers. This recalls the Belfast street tradition of the May Queen where, as David Hammond writes in his Songs of Belfast,

  … squads of children, dressed up in women’s dresses, high-heeled shoes and old lace curtains, escort their own May Queen through the streets, flanked by two guards. They are furnished with a brush-pole for the Queen’s acrobatics and a tin can for collecting money. The encounters with rival Queens are always exciting and vituperative. Modesty and restraint are not predominant features of the occasion.

  Indeed not. I remember the said child Queens parading in their finery, and it would seem that their deportment and vocabulary owed much to the army of female linen-workers – doffers, weavers, winders, tenters, rovers, spinners, drawers, peelers – who occupied the Lower Falls then, and whose rude formidable presence scared me, as they’d march out from the factories at foghorn closing-time in linked-armed, chanting phalanxes, taking up the width of the road, and the desultory traffic of the time – trolleybuses, coal-carts, breadvans – would have to draw to an important halt for them.

  Hearing the chant of their songs, I am brought back to David Hammond, who used to front a BBC Northern Ireland Home Service schools programme, Singing Together; and I was convinced I could remember listening in to it, until I consulted my wife Deirdre, who tells me that she was listening to it when she was about ten, in 1965, when I was seventeen and well outside the aegis of such recreational education, and hadn’t met her yet, and wouldn’t for quite some time.

  So, trying to think myself back into a room in St Gall’s Public Elementary School, I can see myself – my eye of memory hovering like a fly – at a scarred initialled desk in Junior or Senior Infants, as Primary One and Two were known then. It is 1954, the centenary of the proclamation of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception,4 and the May altar is especially elaborate this year, starred with many blue and white flowers. The big valve wireless with its confessional brass grille has just been switched on, and it makes a hum as it warms up in preparation for the coming programme. Putting my ear to it over the intervening decades, I can make out snatches of English folk songs through the temporal crackle and blips of passing Morse, rendered in a jolly rumbustious fashion. As I went down by Strawberry Fair, SINGING, SINGING buttercups and daisies! As I went down by Strawberry Fair, FOL-DE-ROL!. And I would trip merrily along the gutter on my way home from school in time to it, not knowing, as I do now, that it was a sanitized bawdy ditty collected by notebook-wielding classical composers from beery Lincolnshire farm-labourers, and really had no place in an Irish Catholic Public Elementary school. I do not think that we were allowed to listen to the radio very much, since the school was founded by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste De la Salle, and controlled by the De la Salle Brothers, who were maintaining a discreet but effective profile in Ireland, would have been rightly suspicious of its Received Pronunciation anglophone Imperial ideals. But there was an ambiguous entropic time-bomb of irony implicit in their calculations, since one of the main aims of Catholic working-class education of that British welfare state era was to teach us to be – if not priests or brothers, or schoolteachers – potential employees of the Imperial Civil Service, because knowledge was power, and if enough of us infiltrated the system, the system might change in our favour; and it is said by some that the Northern Ireland Education Act of 1947, which guaranteed free secondary education for all denominations, was responsible for the onset of the current Troubles, as the educated Catholic students of the sixties took to the streets to demand civil rights for all, and we all know what happened after that. Another pundit declared that the Act had made potentially good carpenters and plumbers into bad poets.

  I still love the radio and the comfort of its disembodied voice. Often, insomniac during the writing of this book, scribbling memoranda to myself, I’ve tuned into the BBC World Service to overhear its missives to abroad, recalling an era when London, more importantly than Rome, was the hub of the universe, emanating authoritative spokes to its dominions. I hear it murmur as I write, and feel complicit with its now-declining realm.

  1 From abhainn bharrach, barred river, the bars being stakes or staves; and the Owenvarragh, in its lower reaches, from Stockman’s Lane to where it joins the Lagan, becomes the Blackstaff. Barra can also mean a sand-bar, or fearsad; so these waters – Blackstaff, Owenvarragh, Farset – form an etymological confluence.

  2 So-called because it was invariably inhabited by cows.

  3 It occurs to me that ‘sally-rod’ is Ulster rhyming slang to ‘Prod’, i.e. Protestant.

  4 And of the apparition of the Virgin at Lourdes.

  RADIO ULSTER

  In the fifties, ‘radio’ was a medium, as in ‘Home Service’; it was not the receiving mechanism, which was called a wireless, referring to non-telegraphic Marconi transmission, as the air-waves, beamed out from radio beacons, became an ambient wallpaper pattern in the home, a background sometimes listened to, or not. As adults talked over it, I would think of tall Empire State Building masts emitting invisible zig-zag lightning-pulses of communication. I would press my ear against the big warm humming Bakelite body, and mentally shrink myself to walk about inside its Toltec labyrinth of valves and tubes and crystals, sometimes encountering giant dust-beetles who would scan me momentarily with alien antennae, and then go about their scarab business of managing the dark interior. There are many sanctuaries within it, many aisles and transepts, dimly lit by the red glow of votive lamps. A sacristan with a broken insect leg sometimes appears to tend the candles, trimming them with an enormous scissors, or snuffing them out with a minuscule bishop’s hat on a long stalk. The veins on the back of his hands are rivulets of congealed wax. Sometimes, I encounter creatures like myself, but cannot speak to them, since each of us are rapt or lost in private explorations, murmuring before the shrines, or behind the closed doors of confessionals, where one whispers to the priest through a wire grille which smells of brass, nicotine, aftershave, and cassocks.

  These sanctuaries remind me of the BBC Radio Ulster programme, Tearmann, which is Irish for sanctuary, with its other connotations of glebe, refuge and asylum; it’s a kind of Irish language Desert Island Discs, where a featured person is asked to talk about his or her ideal sanctuary or home ground. Interestingly, my father, who appeared on the programme a few weeks ago, chose the language itself as a sanctuary: ‘Ba ghnath liom mé féin a chur i bhfolach innti’, as he said, ‘I used to hide myself within her’, and I see him burrowing down into it, the way I used to, as a child, stick my head into his postman’s bag, relishing its enormous gloomy smell of canvas, twine, and faded correspondences. I see him making the language into a book-lined room which has false-shelved secret passageways that lead to glimmering Atlantic beaches and the smell of turf-smoke dwindling upwards from the chimneys of the white-washed cottages scattered about the landscape, intervened by stretches of bog-cotton and little cobalt-blue loughs. I, too, hide in language, within this book; in this respect, at least, I am my father’s ilk, or macasamhla, as it is in Irish, literally, ‘a son of resemblance’, hence copy or type, as in mac leabhair, a copy of a book. So we have the expression, ‘gurab leis gach leabhar a mhac’, ‘to every book belongs its copy’, a version of the pronouncement made in one of the first recorded copyright disputes, an account of which I cannot resist quoting here; this is from Patricia Lynch’s anthology of the lives of some early Irish saints, Knights of God. which my father gave me when I was about ten or eleven:

  The Precious Book

  A young student staying at Columcille’s col
lege, on his way to the West, declared that among St. Finnian’s collection of manuscripts was one of the finest he had ever seen.

  ‘It’s far better than anything you have here!’ he told Columcille.

  ‘St. Finnian!’ cried Columcille. ‘You mean St. Finnian of Clonard?’

  ‘I do, indeed!’ said the student. ‘Isn’t it a pity you haven’t a copy of the book here?’

  Columcille laughed.

  ‘That’s easily arranged. I will copy it myself! I was at school under St. Finnian. He loves books almost as much as I do and he’ll be only too pleased for another copy to be made!’

  He set out at once for Clonard. There weren’t trains, or buses or motor-cars in Ireland then, but Irish people were always travelling, in chariots, on horses, and, if they had neither chariot nor horse, they went on foot. There were sailing boats and currachs in every port and on every river.

  St. Finnian was proud of his old pupil and welcomed him to Clonard. They sat talking about old times, what had happened to the other boys who were at school with Columcille and the terrible state of the world outside Ireland.

  Columcille told how he had heard of St. Finnian’s precious book.

  ‘I’d be very glad to have a copy of it in my own library!’ said Columcille.

  The old man leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

  ‘You can read it while you are here and I hope you will stay a very long time. You can study the manuscript, but you must not copy it,’ said St. Finnian.

  ‘But——’ began Columcille. Then he stopped. He remembered that St. Finnian never changed his mind. He was clever, generous, but obstinate.

  Columcille was obstinate too.

  ‘There should be more books!’ he thought indignantly. ‘There can’t be too many and St. Finnian knows as well as I do that the only way to increase the number of books is to copy them. All over Ireland people are learning to read and they need books!’

  Late into the night he strode up and down the cell where he was lodged, trying to think of some way of persuading Finnian to let him copy the manuscript.

  ‘I’ll give him anything I have. I’ll make two copies if he’ll let me have one!’ he muttered. ‘But I must have that one!’

  The next day St. Finnian showed Columcille the new buildings, the fine stone wall, and then he showed him his library.

  There were far more manuscripts in it than Columcille ever hoped to possess, St. Finnian was so friendly that Columcille could not believe he would still refuse, so he asked him again.

  ‘Copy anything else you wish and do not hurry over the work. Stay till you can stay no longer, but do not ask what has already been refused!’ St. Finnian told him.

  Like all the O’Neills, Columcille was very proud. He was ashamed that he had asked twice. Leaving St. Finnian without a word, he went back to his cell, determined to leave Clonard at once.

  But he could not go without a copy of that precious book.

  ‘Why should he refuse?’ he asked himself. ‘It isn’t to be understood. ’Tis true that Finnian is old and he always was unreasonable, but he does love learning, and all I ask is that where there is one book I shall make two.’

  He sat in his cell until all around him the monks and students were asleep. He stared out from the door towards the building where Finnian kept his manuscripts. The night was dark. There was no moon. Not a light shone in the whole place. Far off a dog barked and answering cries came from the forest.

  Slowly Columcille walked across the enclosure. A leather satchel swung from a strap over his shoulder. In it he kept his parchments, pens and inks, his paints and a flint for striking a light; a good, thick candle too, made of mixed beef and mutton fat.

  The great oak door of the library was latched but not chained. There were no thieves inside the monastery walls.

  Yet, like a thief, Columcille noiselessly opened the door, entered and closed it behind him. He struck a light, fixed his candle on a stone slab and took down the manuscript he had determined to copy.

  It was a wonderful piece of work. Each capital letter was in colour, with tiny drawings in the curves and loops. Columcille laid it on a desk and turned the pages.

  ‘An artist who loved God made this book!’ he said aloud.

  He settled to his task.

  All night he worked. His hand was stiff with grasping the pen; his head ached; his eyes were closing with weariness when he heard the crowing of a cock.

  Starting up he saw that darkness was fading. A pale light was coming into the sky. Dawn was breaking. Soon everyone in Clonard would be up, washing, cleaning, cooking and all praying as they worked. The boys in the school would be yawning and stretching, pleading for another ten minutes, then rushing out into the chill morning air.

  The candle wick, the tiny scrap that was still unburned, sank sideways in the melted grease and spluttered out. Columcille scraped it off the stone and, dropping it on the floor, ground what was left of the candle into the rushes strewn on the earth. He replaced the manuscript, gathered up his parchments, his brushes, pens and ink, and went swiftly out. As he reached his cell the great bell rang. Another moment and he would have been discovered.

  ‘I must not work so long,’ he decided. ‘There are some who rise before dawn to pray. The risk is too great!’

  The next night, the following night and the night after that, Columcille wrote and painted, drawing with such care and skill that he knew his copy would be far better than the original book.

  During the day he taught in the school, made poems, studied, and slept all he could. Like the other monasteries of Ireland, Clonard had many guests and no one wondered that Columcille should stay so long.

  The night came when Columcille copied the last page, the last line. Where there had been one book there were now two. He laid down his pen and leaned back, happy that he had worked so well.

  His candle was burning clearly and the tiny light shone out into the night. A shepherd, returning from the fold, saw the gleam and, fearing that robbers were stealing St. Finnian’s precious books, crept close up and peeped in.

  He could see a monk sitting at a desk with two books before him. He remembered that the famous Psalter was kept there and that the Abbot had forbidden anyone to copy it.

  ‘Why should a man work secretly at night unless he is doing something forbidden?’ thought the shepherd. ‘St. Finnian is my master. I will not have him wronged!’

  He was about to cry out and raise the alarm. Changing his mind he slipped away and beat on Finnian’s door.

  Finnian heard the story in silence, but he was furious.

  ‘Bring Columcille before me!’ he ordered.

  Columcille came, marching like a soldier, his head thrown back, his grey eyes flashing.

  ‘You asked if you might make a copy of the Psalter of Clonard!’ said Finnian.

  ‘I did!’ agreed Columcille.

  ‘And I refused!’ declared Finnian. ‘You have disobeyed me, but since the work is done I demand the copy.’

  ‘The copy is mine!’ cried Columcille. ‘I have made the world richer. Other copies shall be made and the sacred learning will spread through Ireland.’

  ‘I will appeal to the King!’ said Finnian. ‘He shall decide between us!’

  All the priests, nobles and poets of Ireland who could reach Tara were assembled there when Diarmuid, the King, was to decide between Finnian and Columcille.

  St. Finnian spoke first. He was old and his voice trembled, yet anger made it clear and piercing.

  ‘The book is mine!’ he said. ‘I had it written. ’Twas my money paid for the smoothest parchments, the clearest ink and the finest ground paints that should make it beautiful. The leather for the cover came from my tannery, the binding was done in my workshop. The book is one of the glories of Clonard! Students and scholars from the most distant parts of Europe have come to study in my library. I made them welcome. I made Columcille welcome. He was my pupil. I was proud of him. When he asked permission to copy
my Book of Psalms and I refused, I could not believe he would disobey me. Columcille has betrayed my hospitality! The book is mine. It was copied against my wish. Therefore the copy is mine too!’

  ‘Finnian is right!’ cried so many it seemed that everyone in that great hall agreed with him. Yet there were some who shook their heads.

  ‘We will listen to Columcille!’ they murmured.

  Columcille stood up taller than the men around him, and so straight and fierce amid all these learned men that they remembered he might have been a soldier or even king.

  ‘I have built churches!’ cried Columcille. ‘They are the monuments of our faith. But without the words and teaching of the Church what meaning would they have for us? It is the written books that matter, and we have so few. All over Ireland men and women are crying out for learning. We have saints and scholars, but we could have more! Where I have found a book, I have always copied it, so that always I was bringing more books into the world. St. Finnian’s book is precious. I did not rob him of it. I did not harm it. Only now there are two. I am willing that my book shall belong to Ireland! Any man or woman who can read shall have that copy laid open to study freely. But I will not give it up to Finnian! No! I will not give the toil of nights to Finnian who refused his consent. I will not!’

  His keen eyes flashed round on that crowded hall and shouts and cries answered him—

  ‘The copy is yours, Columcille! The copy is yours!’

  The noise ceased. All looked at Diarmuid, who sat on his throne, troubled and anxious.

  It was a long time before he spoke.

  ‘Here is my judgement – the book was Finnian’s. He had the right to refuse or to consent. He refused. Therefore the copy is his. I follow the law – to every cow its calf. That is my judgement, Columcille, and you must abide by it. Give the copy to Finnian!’

  Columcille then goes to war over this decision, and the Lynch book has a great illustration by Alfred Kerr of the ringletted and bearded cloaked saint clutching the book in his left hand, and directing the war-traffic behind his back with his right hand, where lancers prance their Clydesdales, and the chain-mailed moustachioed infantry are grim-lipped; and Columcille’s one visible eye stares off the margins of the page, anticipating his self-exile, when, after the battle, he vows never to see Ireland again.