Ireland has been blessed with some extraordinary Singers.
Mary and Luke sing with natural authority.
Singing songs all their lives.
Silver songs of Freedom.
Songs for Ireland.
Louis MacNeice’s long autobiographical Poem, ‘Autumn Journal’ has had a prominent place on my shelves for more than 50 years now (I was a precocious Poetry devotee).
Today I feature two exquisite shorter poems which demonstrate his technical accomplishment and plangent imagination.
… I am not yet born; provide me With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.
And ain’t it the truth ….
It’s no go the merrygoround, it’s no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.
If you are Irish or know someone who is Irish or of Irish heritage (and that’s all of you!) please share these Hail St Patrick Posts as widely as possible.
Traditional Irish music demands far more than mere instrumental virtuosity from its practitioners.
What is demanded is cultural and spiritual engagement with the spirit of the music combined with deep listening to fellow musicians.
No better men to prove the point than Paul Brady and Arty McGlynn.
Paul Brady has featured here several times before as befits a master musician, songwriter, singer and performer.
Arty McGlynn, who sadly died recently, will be less well known to those who are not Irish music aficionados.
Arty, who I saw grace the stage many tines with Van Morrison, was by universal acclaim the premier guitarist in the traditional music world.
He seemed always able to find exactly the right parts to play both as a soloist and as a supportive accompanist.
Anyone playing with Arty was in the very best of company.
The clip below is from a 1976 TV Show and showcases Paul Brady’s great song Crazy Dreams before it had that title and before it was recorded with a rhapsodic full band electric arrangement.
Magnificent as that version remains I always wished the acoustic version below had been officially issued.
It doesn’t get any better !
Now let’s let Arty delight us with scintillating solo a Guitar.
To add to our revelries let’s now introduce master musicians Matt Molloy and John Carty
Sometimes a session opens up glorious musical vistas undreamed of before the first note was launched into the innocent air.
If you ever find yourself at such a session find yourself a good seat and settle in for the evening and let the magic do its work.
Now for some Poetry.
Bernard O’Donoghue has been a distinguished academic at Oxford University for many decades.
Yet, as his poems attest, imaginatively and emotionally he has always drawn nurture and inspiration from his Irish roots.
O’ Donahue’s poems are deeply felt and fully realised.
An architecture of the spirit.
There is an affecting spareness and reticence in tone which may owe much to his immersion in classical and medieval poetry.
The old thin ache you thought that you’d forgotten-
More smoke, admittedly than flame;
Less tears than rain. And the whole business
Neither here nor there, and therefore home.”
This Post Dedicated to the music and memory of Arty McGlynn.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam (May his soul be seated on God’s right hand)
Well here in the South Downs March did indeed come in like a Lion.
A very angry Lion.
Storm force 11 tree felling, roof lifting, banshee howling winds.
Field flooding, roof rattling, better build your Ark now! torrential rain.
Still, we hunkered down, turned the Hi Fi high and the lights down low and emerged blinking into the revelation of a sunny day.
And, here at The Jukebox March always ushers in another celebration of Ireland’s stupendous contribution to art and culture.
So, without further ado let’s call up the majestic voice of Dolores Keane and surrender to her Emotional Force 12 version of, ‘Teddy O’Neill’.
… The pain in my heart was too deep to conceal …
You would think after hearing Dolores sing in such an imperious manner that no other singer would dare to take on Teddy O’Neill.
But, true artists, and Maura O’Connell is a true artist, know that the best compliment you can pay a giant presence in your own field is to admire, reflect and then do otherwise.
Listen to Maura’s miraculous glowing vocal, here with Folk Legends De Dannan.
There is a dying ember tenderness that deeply stirs the heart.
… All dark and silent … no piper … no reel …
Ah, Teddy, Teddy, to have stirred such dreams.
Such Dreams.
Our opening tip of the hat to Ireland’s poetic treasury is from Michael Hartnett who previously featured here with his mystic, ‘Necklace of Wrens’.
When the wren landed on Michael his grandmother soberly told him that this was a sign he was going to be a Poet.
When it comes to Poetry many are called but very few are chosen.
Michael Hartnett heard and responded full heartedly to his call and the rich harvest of his works demonstrate that he was indeed chosen.
Inchicore Haiku was a return to the English Language after many years of writing solely in Irish.
I forgot that not only did I have a duty to celebrate the season of St Patrick here on The Jukebox I also had to celebrate in person and recover from those celebrations!
So, a little delayed, but I trust well worth the wait, the Official Immortal Jukebox St Patrick’s Day Post!
Now read on ….
All Hail St Patrick!
All Hail the Women of Ireland
Today we conclude our tribute to the intelligence, wisdom and beauty the Women of Ireland have brought to the arts of Song, Poetry and Painting.
Songs by Eleanor McEvoy (At the Mid Hour of Night & A Woman’s Heart) & AIlie (The Rocky Road to Dublin).
A Poetry Reading by Paula Meehan – ‘The Pattern’.
A Painting by Moyra Barry (1886-1960) : ‘Cinerria’
More years ago than I care to count seeking sanctuary from the crazed cacophony of life in London I frequented an out of the way social club whose clientele was largely comprised of Irish men and women who had emigrated to England in the late 40s/early 50s.
For an hour or two I would savour a pint or two of plain and drink in the rich accents and the rich conversation.
One of the habitues of the club, a whiskery Corkman, let’s call him Seamus, always greeted me by announcing, ‘You buy me a pint of porter and I’ll sing you one of Moore’s Melodies’.
My reply was always, ‘Done – let’s start with, ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ and if the thirst is on you and the humour on me we won’t stop until we’ve sung, ‘Oft in the Stilly Night’, ‘The Harp’ and, ‘The Minstrel Boy’ before we leave.
I usually emerged spiritually refreshed if somewhat intoxicated from the porter and the romanticism of the melodies.
Thomas Moore was something of a 19th Century superstar in English and Irish society.
His, ‘Melodies’ lyrics set to established Irish tunes and melodies were much admired by Lord Byron and became songs that entered deep into the consciousness of generations.
As such, in modern Ireland, they came to be regarded, in certain chilly circles, as period pieces from the parlour best left to the tourists to enjoy.
A view I never had any time for.
So, I was delighted to learn that Eleanor McEvoy had recorded an album entirely devoted to Thomas Moore Songs, ‘The Thomas Moore Project’.
The distinguishing mark of Eleanor’s career, for me, was a wholly admirable creative restlessness which led her never to attempt to simply repeat earlier successes but rather to challenge herself to open up new artistic territory with every new record.
It seemed to me that her background; incorporating a music degree, a spell in the RTE Symphony Orchestra and a string of imaginative singer/songwriter albums made her an ideal candidate to present refreshed versions of songs from Moore’s great canon illuminating them brightly for new generations to enjoy.
And, praise be!, the, ‘Thomas Moore Project’ turned out to be an absolute triumph due to the endless care and consideration with which the songs were approached.
Original, imaginative arrangements combined with superb instrumental playing and heart-piercingly intimate vocals shook the dust off and revealed the ravishing beauty and sophisticated emotional acuity of Moore’s works.
Eleanor McEvoy’s take on, ‘At the Mid Hour of Night’ reanimates those, ‘past scenes of delight’ and is indeed rapture to hear.
‘At the mid hour of night when stars are weeping, I fly To the lonely vale we lov’d when life shone warm in thine eye; And I think that if spirits can steal from the region of air, To revisit past scenes of delight; thou wilt come to me there, And tell me our love is remember’d even in the sky.
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Then I’ll sing the wild song, which once ’twas rapture to hear, When our voices, both mingling, breathed like one on the ear, And, as Echo far off thro’ the vale my sad orison rolls, I think, oh my love! ’tis thy voice from the kingdom of souls Faintly answering still the notes which once were so dear!’
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Our Poetry Reading today comes from a former Ireland Professor of Poetry, Paula Meehan.
She has a plenitude of poetic powers at her command.
Reading through her works it seems that no aspect of the struggle to live a human life in our times has escaped her poetic eye and ear.
There is tenderness and rage, grief and joy and empathy embedded in her poetry.
She is a Poet who believes in the enduring power of Poetry to affect the human heart.
Her Poems exemplify the truth that there is a never to be sounded mysterious energy and power in Poetry.
She has said that, ‘ …Poems tell stories but there are also poems that just give you a moment of vision or transcendence .. two lines, two lines can save a life, I believe it.’
In, ‘The Pattern’ Paula Meehan captures with truth and tenderness the gravitational power of the Mother/Daughter relationship.
Today’s painting is by Moyra Barry.
Her special gift was for flower paintings.
These works have a quality of engaged observation and radiance which forces the viewer to take a breath and really Look!
Now to a new star from Ireland.
Ailie (Blunnie) from County Leitrim.
Her debut album. ‘West to the Evening Sun’ was a confident and mature work showcasing a talent that was wholly of the Now while being in no way cut off from the rich and diverse heritage of Irish music.
Highly atmospheric production added to the poetic imagination of her songs ensured the album packed a real punch.
Here she gifts us an unforgettable and invigorating version of the Rocky Road to Dublin.
Ailie plays Piano, Bass and Electric Guitar as well as all the singing here.
Daragh Dukes’ production makes the whole thing gleam.
My, ‘Brand new pair of brogues’ did some high stepping to this one I can tell you!
I am going to conclude this tribute to Irish Women with a song by Eleanor McEvoy which has rightly become a modern standard, ‘A Woman’s Heart’.
I hope this series has made plain that there are some things only a Woman’s heart can know and that we should be grateful for that knowledge being passed on to us in Songs, Poems and Paintings.
There will never come a time when Eleanor will not be asked to sing this song and there will never come a time when it fails to move all the hearts of those who hear it.
All hail the Women of Ireland!
For Peg, Marguerite, Ann, Roisin, Hannah and Martha Brosnan, Irene, Geraldine and Nina Fitzpatrick, Maura Dee, Deirdre and Sinead Trant, Niamh & Aisling Blackburn and Patricia & Grace O’Sullivan.
The Jukebox continues the celebration of the glories of Irish Women with :
Songs from Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh (An Mhaigdean Mhara) & Sinead Lohan (Sailing By).
A Painting by Letitia Hamilton (1878-1964) – ‘A Rest from Hunting’.
A Poetry Reading by Catherine Ann Cullen (Meeting at the Chester Beatty).
Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, a Donegal native, is a wonderful fiddler and a spellbinding singer.
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With the traditional music group Altan she has honoured that tradition and shown that there is a considerable global audience for the music when it is performed with heart and drive.
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And, when Mairéad sings the song below there is something more than heart and drive; there is the shiver of an encounter with the numinous.
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Her singing here dives to the deep core of the song and to hidden truths swaying in the subconscious.
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This is a lament and all of our lives will have cause at some point to call out for a lament.
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No life escapes loss and exile. All time is borrowed.
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Is cosúil gur mheath tú nó gur thréig tú an greann
Tá an sneachta go freasach fá bhéal na mbeann’
Do chúl buí daite is do bhéilín sámh
Siúd chugaibh Mary Chinidh ‘s í ‘ndiaidh an Éirne ‘shnámh
A mháithrín mhilis duirt Máire Bhán
Fá bhruach an chladaigh ‘s fá bhéal na trá
Maighdean mhara mo mhaithrín ard
Siúd chugaibh Mary Chinidh ‘s í ‘ndiaidh an Éirne ‘shnámh
Tá mise tuirseach agus beidh go lá
Mo Mháire bhroinngheal ‘s mo Phádraig bán
Ar bharr na dtonna ‘s fá bhéal na trá
Siúd chugaibh Mary Chinidh ‘s í ‘ndiaidh an Éirne ‘shnámh
You seem to be pining and forsaking the fun
The snowdrifts are heavy by the fords in the burn
Your bright golden tresses and smile gentle and mild
I give you Mary Kinney who has swum the ocean wide
“Darling mother, ” cries Máire Bhán
From the banks of the ocean and down by the tide
“Mermaid, my mother, my pride”
I give you Mary Kinney who has swum the ocean wide
I’m tired and weary and will be ’til dawn
For my darling Mary and my Pádraid bán
As I ride on the billows and drift with the tide
I give you Mary Kinney who has swum the ocean wide.
The Poet showcase today is Catherine Ann Cullen.
She has written a wonderful lyrical and informative essay (in essence an introduction to her PhD) which references the ‘Singing Without Ceasing’ and the ‘Murmur of Voices’ which formed the musical and cultural landscape of her childhood.
This is perhaps the source of the poise and intense musicality gold-threaded through all her writing.
I highly recommend her collections, ‘A Bone in My Throat’ and, ‘Strange Familiar’.
She has also written a book, nominally for 6-8 year olds, ‘The Magical, Mystical, Marvelous Coat’ which is truly enchanting whatever age your birth certificate might say you are!
All Poetry is a kind of cartography – a description and revelation of the Poet’s territory and the developing outline of a personal, emotional, cultural and literary landscape.
The poem below shows Catherine Ann Cullen weaving a brilliantly coloured and textured tapestry of recollected feeling. .
The Painting today is by Letitia Marion Hamilton.
Her paintings of the Irish landscape and rural life have the quality of intoxicatingly hazy summer dreams that linger in the imagination.
It is very rare for an artist enjoying critical and commercial success and with the promise of greater success in store to decide to simply walk away to pursue another life away from the stage.
Yet, that is exactly what Sinead Lohan has done.
In the mid/late 1990s she released two highly prized records, ‘Who Do You Think I Am’ and, ‘No Mermaid’ which still get selected from the Jukebox’s extensive library on a frequent basis.
Two of her songs were covered by Folk Icon Joan Baez and all seemed set fair for a stellar career as she was capable of writing distinctive hypnotic songs and of performing them with beguiling charm.
No new material has emerged since 1998 so we will have to treasure what we have.
Thanks for the songs and the singing Sinead.
If you enjoyed this post and know anyone who is Irish or of Irish heritage (and you do!) share it with them and ask them to share it further.
Next Post tomorrow Sunday 17th March, St Patrick’s Day – don’t miss it!
Songs by Eleanor Shanley ( Come Back Paddy Reilly) & Inni-K (Teardrop).
A Painting by Estella Solomons (1882-1968) ‘Moppie Morrow’.
A Poetry Reading by Rita Ann Higgins : ‘The Hedger’.
The Irish temperament is formed out of the knowledge that, in the end, no one survives this world without a broken heart.
Irish singers, painters and poets have for millennia embodied this truth in their works.
Tragedy abides but the true artist, not ignoring the darkness, finds within themselves sparks of joy to light up the glowering sky.
In the voice of Leitrrim’s Eleanor Shanley we find a tenderness and sustaining sweetness that glows in the heart.
The song she sings here Percy French’s, ‘Come Back Paddy Reilly’, has a special poignancy for me as it was my late mother’s favourite song and its haunting air accompanied her coffin as we carried her out of the church at her funeral.
It was also sung as a lullaby to my wife by her late father.
We think of them both with love and gratitude and with smiles and tears whenever we hear this song.
The garden of Eden has vanished they say But I know the lie of it still Just turn to the left at the bridge of Finea And stop when half way to Coote Hill
Tis there I will find it I know sure enough When fortune has come to my call Oh, the grass it is green Around Ballyjamesduff And the blue sky is over it all
And tones that are tender and tones that are gruff Are whispering over the sea “Come back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff Come home Paddy Reilly to me”
My mother once told me that when I was born The day that I first saw the light I looked down the street on that very first morn And gave a great crow of delight
Now most newborn babies appear in a huff And start with a sorrowful squall But I knew I was born in Ballyjamesduff And that’s why I smile on them all
The baby’s a man now, he’s toil-worn and tough Still whispers come over the sea
“Come back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff Come home Paddy Reilly to me”
The featured Painter today is Estella Solomons who was a Dubliner.
She was a member of a distinguished Jewish family with both her father and brother being mentioned by he great chronicler of Dublin life – James Joyce.
Her mother was a Poet and her Sister an opera singer.
She was deeply involved in the Irish Republican movement as a member of Cumann na mBan and in the cultural life of post revolutionary Ireland through her own work and that of her Poet and publisher husband, Seamus O’Sullivan.
The humble steady gaze of her paintings and prints have a meditative stillness which can be intensely moving.
Rita Ann Higgins is a Poet whose work has fierce feminine energy and lacerating emotional force.
As a Galway Woman from a large working class family she has broadened the canvas of Irish Poetry through an alert, inventive voice charged with righteous anger and absurdity.
This is a Poetry responding to and teeming with life in all its maddening plenitude.
Every now and again you hear a record that startles you by the freshness of its imagination.
‘The King has Two Horse’s Ears’ by Inni-K (Eithne Ni Chathain) from 2015 was one such record for me.
Irish Folk? Certainly.
But experimentally infused with Pop, Jazz and World Music accents.
All carried off with tremendous confidence and élan.
A record that repaid repeated listening.
Her new album, ‘The Hare & The Line’ has much to live up to!
In memory of Sheila Doyle and Joan Hickey.
Notes :
Eleanor Shanley recorded three highly recommended albums with the legendary group De Danann : ‘Jacket of Batteries’, Half Set in Harlem’ & ‘Wonderwaltz’.
I particularly prize her Solo albums – ‘Desert Heart’, and ‘A Place of My Own’ .
The two records she made with Ronnie Drew – ‘A Couple More Years’ & ‘El Amor De Mi Vida’ have a wonderful warmth.
If you enjoyed this post and know anyone who is Irish or of Irish heritage (and you do!) share it with them and ask them to share it further.
Songs by Maura O’ Connell (Helpless Heart) & SÍOMHA (July Red Sky)
A Poetry reading by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (Studying The Language).
A Painting by Lilian Lucy Davidson (1879-1954) : Wicklow Goats.
A Paul Brady song sung by Maura O’Connell – it really doesn’t get any better.
Maura inhabits a song, finds its essence and then using all the considerable craft at her command sets it free to bloom in our imaginations.
There is a repertoire of traditional songs and modern folk classics that generations of Irish Women singers have returned to over and over again seeking to release and reveal the wisdom and mystery these masterworks contain.
Time after time I find it is to the Maura O’Connell versions I turn to first and last because these songs shine brightest and settle deeper in the heart when she sings them.
There is reverie and rapture here.
Reverie and rapture.
And, the video clip is enormously nostalgic!
Our painting today comes from Lilian Davidson who was born in Bray, County Wicklow.
Her work shows she was aware of movements in European Art and had secure painterly skills.
I am struck by the vivacity of the light and colour in her paintings which seem to gleam before the viewer.
In addition to her paintings she also wrote plays, poems and short stories under the name Ulick Burke.
The National Gallery of Ireland keeps her portrait of W B Yeats.
Our Poetry reading today comes from Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.
For almost half a century now she has been adding magical poems to the cairn of Irish poetry and the global word hoard.
In her poems language is thrillingly allusive and alive.
It is in the testing of thought and belief through charged engagement with language that Poetry is made.
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin has said that her Poems emerge out of her desire, need, to question – Is this true? Do I really believe this? Do I really feel this?
If the Poem lives the question is answered.
Often in ways that could not have been anticipated.
True Poetry is always surprising both to the Poet and the reader.
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin has written many true poems.
SÍOMHA (Brock) is, in her music, wholly Irish and wholly international.
She draws deeply on the traditions of traditional music, folk music, chanson and gypsy jazz to create an alluring synthesis.
On stage she has an energy, expertise and magnetism in her singing and guitar playing which wins and holds audiences.
We are all going to hear a lot more from SÍOMHA!
This post in memory of Mary O’Sullivan and Nora McElligott.
If you enjoyed this post and know anyone who is Irish or of Irish heritage (and you do!) share it with them and ask them to share it further.
March is the month when the Immortal Jukebox, in the run up to the St Patrick’s day festivities, celebrates the enormous contribution Irish artists have made to the World’s treasury of Poetry, Song and Paintings.
This year’s posts are in celebration of the works, so often under regarded, of the Women of Ireland.
Each post will feature a song by an established singer and another by a singer or group who may not yet have gained fame outside of Ireland.
I will also be showcasing a Poetry reading and a Painting.
I hope I will be making introductions that will lead you to further exploration.
Today :
Songs by Dolores Keane and The Evertides.
Eavan Boland reading :
‘The Lost Art of Letter Writing’, ‘Quarantine’ and ‘The Emigrant Irish’.
A Painting by Mildred Anne Butler (1858-1941) : A Murder of Crows
My admiration for Dolores Keane knows no bounds.
In her voice you can hear Ireland speaking with power and authority.
In her voice you can hear Ireland speaking of pain, exile and loss.
In her voice you can hear Ireland speaking with faith and joy.
Listen to Dolores Keane.
Listen to Ireland.
Our painting today comes from Mildred Anne Butler who looked deep into the domestic and the animal life all around her Kilkenny home.
She painted en plein air and there is a startling freshness shining from her works.
She is well represented in galleries and latterly was commemorated on an Irish postage stamp.
Eavan Boland is a Poet of patience and fortitude.
Throughout her career she has attended to the whispers and looked unflinchingly into the dark shadows of Irish life and culture – particularly as experienced by Irish Women.
There is a complexity and precision of language and weight of thought in her work which is the mark of a major Poet.
The Evertides are a trio of wonderfully talented Irish Women – Ruth McGill, Alma Kelliher and Ruth Smith.
Their instrumental and vocal blend is that of Sisters in Song.
Their three part harmonies surround, enchant and elevate our senses.
The ability to enchant and to open doors into the numinous makes The Evertides a very special group.
In memory of Julia O’Sullivan and Hannah Hartnett.
If you enjoyed this post and know anyone who is Irish or of Irish heritage (and you do!) share it with them and ask them to share it further.
Notes :
In addition to her role in The Evertides Ruth Smith presents one of my, ‘Must Listen’ radio programmes, ‘Simply Folk’ which airs on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sundays at 10pm.
Seek it out!
The next Post in the series will be published on Tuesday 12 March – Don’t miss it!
Today one of the definitive Irish Traditional Songs sung by the regal Mary Black and an extraordinarily powerful Poem by an Irish Poet of world stature, Eavan Boland.
The Painting today is by a contemporary Irish Artist, Peter Dee, whose arresting and highly covetable Still Life works are the fruit of deep contemplation and confident technical accomplishment.
She Moves Through The Fair is a Song that we will never get to the bottom of.
It contains details of everyday life and a mysterious, swirling, intermingling of the known and supernatural Worlds we all move within.
There are some sorrows, some griefs, that can only be borne through Song being too deep for common speech.
The common speech of hand clapping dealers striking bargains at the fair.
While we move, half-blind, through our lives the stars look down and the swans fly over the lake.
All the while the soft fluttering of moths fill the night and dew will glisten on the meadow.
While we bear our burden of loss and longing the wide world turns and turns oblivious.
All as we move through the fair.
Through the fair.
Mary Black’s singing embodies the humanity and the other worldliness of the song with glowing assurance.
Mary Black can flat out sing!
She Moves Through The Fair
I once had a sweetheart, I loved her right well
I loved her far better than my tongue can tell
Her parents did slight me for the want of guile
Adieu to all pleasure since I lost my dear
She went away from me and moved through the fair
Where hand-clapping dealers’ loud shouts rent the air
The sunlight around her did sparkle and play
Saying, “It will not be long, love, ’til our wedding day”
When dew falls on meadows and moths fill the night
When glow from the greesach on half-froze, half-light
I’ll slip from my casement and I’ll run away
Then it will not be long, love, ’til our wedding day
I dreamed last night that my love came in
She came in so easy, her feet made no din
She came stepping up to me and this she did say
“It will not be long, love, ’til our wedding day”
Eavan Boland’s Poetry is characterised by fierce intelligence and a determination to fearlessly examine the toxins of Ireland’s history as understood and experienced by a modern Irish Woman.
So, it is a Poetry which utters outrage, anger and bewildered frustration as well as ease and joy.
I sometimes feel as if her work has served to redraw the map of Irish Poetry – significantly expanding the imaginative territory and cutting a path for others to follow.
The Poem I have selected today is the work of a Major Poet.
Eavan Boland : Quarantine
In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking — they were both walking — north.
She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.
In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:
Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.
A Poem written and read by Richard Murphy (1927 – 2018)
A Painting by Paul Kelly
Today a farewell homage to one of Ireland’s most treasured Poets – Richard Murphy and what I am sure for many of you will be an introduction to a singer/songwriter particularly close to my own heart, Ger Wolfe, whose stature as an artist has not yet been properly reflected in popular awareness.
The painting today is by a contemporary Irish Artist, Paul Kelly, whose landscapes of County Dublin cast a spell.
Ger Wolfe in ‘The Curra Road’ has written a song that beautifully captures the sense of being at home and at peace in the physical, emotional and spiritual landscape of Home.
The hallowed Home we always want to carry within us as we walk down other roads on our pilgrimage through Life..
The Curra Road is undoubtedly a classic Irish Song and its luminous lyricism is entirely characteristic of Ger Wolfe’s catalogue.
I heard a story the other day that Bob Dylan would test out the compatibility of prospective musicians by asking, sotto voce, do you know, ‘Pretty Peggy-O’?
If the answer was Yes and they could follow and augment Bob’s version they were hired!
I have the same sort of test for anyone who considers themselves well informed on Irish Music – Do you know, ‘The Curra Road’?
If the answer is Yes I’m up to the Bar to buy them a pint – content there will lots to talk about that evening!
The Curra Road
In the summer we’ll go walking
Way down to the river down the Curra road
There’s a blue sky we’ll walk under
Listen to the humming bees and on we’ll go
We won’t worry about the Winter
Worry ‘bout it raining , worry about the snow
In the summer we’ll go walking
Way down to the river down the Curra road
Past the cattle at their grazing
Through the woods of hazel, holly, birch and oak
Past the robin on the gatepost
Singing to the bluebells, sunlight is their host
We won’t worry about the radio
Worry about the traffic, worry about the phone
In the summer we’ll go laughing
Way down to the river down the dusty road
There is music in the river
Listen to it dancing underneath the bridge
And the wind is hardly breathing
Words onto the willow branches overhead
We won’t worry about the government
Worry about the video, worry about the day
In the summer we’ll go waltzing
Hand in hand together down the dusty way
You can’t go wrong with any of his CDs – my favourites are, ‘I Have Been Loved’, ‘No Bird Sang’ and, ‘The Ragged Ground’.
I’m eagerly anticipating a forthcoming compilation, ‘The Lark Of Mayfield’.
Richard Murphy, who died at the end of January this year, had tremendous poetic gifts and a capacity for disciplined hard work at his craft over many decades.
His collection, ‘The Pleasure Ground: Poems 1952-2012’ (Lilliput Press) is a must-have for anyone interested in modern Irish Poetry.
Murphy had deep feeling for the Irish landscape and the Seas around The Island (and its offshore Islands).
There is a profound physicality present in his verse which makes responding to his work an uplifting whole-body experience..
I have always been particularly impressed by his ability to make history come alive in verse especially through long narratives allowing for exposition, diversions and deliberation.
Reading Richard Murphy will open up new imaginative territory and offer revelatory perspectives on the worlds we imagined we knew well.
Listen to him below reading one of his early triumphs – ‘Sailing To An Island’
Such sinewy, living language!
SAILING TO AN ISLAND
The boom above my knees lifts, and the boat
Drops, and the surge departs, departs, my cheek
Kissed and rejected, kissed, as the gaff sways
A tangent, cuts the infinite sky to red
Maps, and the mast draws eight and eight across
Measureless blue, the boatmen sing or sleep.
We point all day for our chosen island,
Clare, with its crags purpled by legend:
There under castles the hot O’Malleys,
Daughters of Granuaile, the pirate queen
Who boarded a Turk with a blunderbuss,
Comb red hair and assemble cattle.
Across the shelved Atlantic groundswell
Plumbed by the sun’s kingfisher rod,
We sail to locate in sea, earth and stone
The myth of a shrewd and brutal swordswoman
Who piously endowed an abbey.
Seven hours we try against wind and tide,
Tack and return, making no headway.
The north wind sticks like a gag in our teeth.
Encased in a mirage, steam on the water,
Loosely we coast where hideous rocks jag,
An acropolis of cormorants, an extinct
Volcano where spiders spin, a purgatory
Guarded by hags and bristled with breakers.
The breeze as we plunge slowly stiffens:
There are hills of sea between us and land,
Between our hopes and the island harbour.
A child vomits. The boat veers and bucks.
There is no refuge on the gannet’s cliff.
We are far, far out: the hull is rotten,
The spars are splitting, the rigging is frayed,
And our helmsman laughs uncautiously.
What of those who must earn their living
On the ribald face of a mad mistress?
We in holiday fashion know
This is the boat that belched its crew
Dead on the shingle in the Cleggan disaster.
Now she dips, and the sail hits the water.
She luffs to a squall; is struck; and shudders.
Someone is shouting. The boom, weak as scissors,
Has snapped. The boatman is praying.
Orders thunder and canvas cannodades.
She smothers in spray. We still have a mast;
The oar makes a boom. I am told to cut
Cords out of fishing-lines, fasten the jib.
Ropes lash my cheeks. Ease! Ease at last:
She wings to leeward, we can safely run.
Washed over rails our Clare Island dreams,
With storm behind us we straddle the wakeful
Waters that draw us headfast to Inishbofin.
The bows rock as she overtakes the surge.
We neither sleep nor sing nor talk,
But look to the land where the men are mowing.
What will the islanders think of our folly?
The whispering spontaneous reception committee
Nods and smokes by the calm jetty.
Am I jealous of these courteous fishermen
Who hand us ashore, for knowing the sea
Intimately, for respecting the storm
That took nine of their men on one bad night
And five from Rossadillisk in this very boat?
Their harbour is sheltered. They are slow to tell
The story again. There is local pride
In their home-built ships.
We are advised to return next day by the mail.
But tonight we stay, drinking with people
Happy in the monotony of boats,
Bringing the catch to the Cleggan market,
Cultivating fields, or retiring from America
With enough to soak till morning or old age.
The bench below my knees lifts, and the floor
Drops, and words depart, depart, with faces
Blurred by the smoke. An old man grips my arm,
His shot eyes twitch, quietly dissatisfied.
Ha has lost his watch, an American gold
From Boston gas-works. He treats the company
To the secretive surge, the sea of his sadness.
I slip outside, fall among stones and nettles,
Crackling dry twigs on an elder tree,
While an accordion drones above the hill.
Later, I reach a room, where the moon stares
Through a cobwebbed window. The tide has ebbed,
Boats are careened in the harbour. Here is a bed.
The Immortal Jukebox 