The Stolen Child : W B Yeats

 

THE STOLEN CHILD

By W.B. Yeats

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake

There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats

Full of berries
And the reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest RossesWe foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters of the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand. 

 

 

              

In Ireland, the Faerie folk are always treated with respect, but many accusations are hurled at them as well, from making crops wither to milk tuning sour.
One of the most common accusations is that they steal humans and spirit them away to live in the Faerie realm, this person is known as a Changeling.



The humans most at risk though are babies and young children. They are taken and in their place a Faerie child is left, this child is known as a changeling although the term changeling can also refer to someone who has been taken and then returned to the mortal world a few years later.
The Faeries covert human babies as they tend to be happy, healthy, sturdy beings and have no hesitation in swopping them with their own sickly babes. On occasion they have been known to take a child because they believe it is not loved enough by its human parents or sometimes they take the child out of malice or spite, one can never be sure what a Faeries motive is.

Comeragh Mountains : Nire Valley

Today in the Nire Valley

Paula Meehan: Irish Poet

     

‘Seed’, by Paula Meehan

The first warm day of spring and I step out into the garden from the gloom of a house where hope had died to tally the storm damage, to seek what may have survived. And finding some forgotten lupins I’d sown from seed last autumn holding in their fingers a raindrop each  like a peace offering, or a promise, I am suddenly grateful and would offer a prayer if I believed in God. But not believing, I bless the power of seed, its casual, useful persistence, and bless the power of sun, its conspiracy with the underground, and thank my stars the winter’s ended. ‘Seed’ is © Paula Meehan,       ‘

100 years of " Danny Boy"

Ireland's best loved secular hymn, originally released the day before World War 1 began. A fitting song for Armistice Day I think.

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.
From glen to glen and down the mountain side.
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling.
'Tis you, 'tis you must go, and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow, 
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow.
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so.

But when ye come and all the flowers are dying, 
And I am dead, as dead I well may be, 
Go out and find the place where I am lying, 
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.

And I will hear tho' soft your tread above me, 
And then my grave will warm and sweeter be.
For you shall bend and tell me that you love me, 
And I will sleep in peace until you come to me.

 

 

Take the time to listen to Sinead O' Connor sing this beautiful song

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLjyAkOrEfQ&list=PLC4869944219CC971

The Story of the Irish Race: Fir Bolg

 

The Irish race of today is popularly known as the Milesian Race, because the genuine Irish (Celtic) people were supposed to be descended from Milesius of Spain, whose sons, say the legendary accounts, invaded and possessed themselves of Ireland a thousand years before Christ.


The races that occupied the land when the so-called Milesians came, chiefly the Firbolg and the Tuatha De Danann, were certainly not exterminated by the conquering Milesians. Those two peoples formed the basis of the future population, which was dominated and guided, and had its characteristics moulded, by the far less numerous but more powerful Milesian aristocracy and soldiery. All three of these races, however, were different tribes of the great Celtic family, who, long ages before, had separated from the main stem, and in course of later centuries blended again into one tribe of Gaels - three derivatives of one stream, which, after winding their several ways across Europe from the East, in Ireland turbulently met, and after eddying, and surging tumultuously, finally blended in amity, and flowed onward in one great Gaelic stream.

The possession of the country was wrested from the Firbolgs, and they were forced into partial serfdom by the Tuatha De Danann (people of the goddess Dana), who arrived later. Totally unlike the uncultured Firbolgs, the Tuatha De Dannann were a capable and cultured, highly civilised people, so skilled in the crafts, if not the arts, that the Firbolgs named them necromancers, and in course of time both the Firbolgs and the later coming Milesians created a mythology around these.

In a famed battle at Southern Moytura (on the Mayo-Galway border) it was that the Tuatha De Danann met and overthrew the Firbolgs. The Firbolgs noted King, Eochaid was slain in this great battle, but the De Danan King, Nuada, had his hand cut off by a great warrior of the Firbolgs named Sreng. The battle raged for four days. So bravely had the Firbolgs fought, and so sorely exhausted the De Dannann, that the latter, to end the battle, gladly left to the Firbolgs, that quarter of the Island wherein they fought, the province now called Connaught. And the bloody contest was over.


The famous life and death struggle of two races is commemorated by a multitude of cairns and pillars which strew the great battle plain in Sligo - a plain which bears the name (in Irish) of "The plain of the Towers of the Fomorians". The Danann were now the undisputed masters of the land. So goes the honoured legend.

•  
•  
• Tailltu was one of the most powerful warrior-rulers of early Ireland and was the most illustrious warrior-queen of the tribe known as the Fir Bolg, one of the earliest races to invade and inhabit Ireland. Tailltu was the wife of Eochai Garb Mac Erc, king of the Fir Bolg, foster-mother to the great hero Lugh the Sun God, and daughter of King MághMhor of Spain. Tailltu was buried at her cult centre on the plain she had cleared at Telltown, near Navan, Co. Meath, not far from Royal Tara, in the Irish Valley of the Kings.

         Art work by Jim Fitzpatrick

 

 
  

 

 

Centenary of 1913 Dublin Lock-out

The Dublin 1913 Lockout began on 26th August 1913 when all the trams on O’Connell Street stopped with workers seeking pay rises ranging from 1s to 2s a week. William Martin Murphy, the owner of the Dublin Tramway Company locked out members of the IT&GWU who refused to sign the pledge and leave the union and James Larkin, leader of the union called a general strike. In the disputes that followed more than 20,000 workers were either locked out of their jobs by their employers or went on strike. The Lockout continued for 6 months with families enduring widespread hardship, poverty and hunger and by early 1914 many of the workers were driven back to work. Housing conditions in Dublin at the time were very bad with the slums considered some of the worst in the UK. The 1911 census shows that 26,000 families in Dublin city lived in tenements, 20,000 of them in single rooms. The mortality rates per 1,000 were 22.3 in Dublin compared to 15.6 in London. On 2nd September, 7 people – including two children died when two tenements, numbers 66 and 67 Church Street collapsed



 



One room tenement dwelling Francis Street Dublin


Children at play on Henrietta Street in the early 1920s.
(RSAI: DD 44)
The story of Henrietta Street was replicated across the city, as streets amalgamated into slums. Life in the slums was raw and desperate. In 1911 nearly 26,000 families lived in inner-city tenements, and 20,000 of these families lived in just one room. Most families were dependent on intermittent casual labour; three out of five workers in the Heney household in Killarney Parade were unemployed. Remarkably, many one-room tenements did not just house a family, but that family also took in members of their extended families or tenants; the Dixon family at Buckingham St. also had a nurse-child, Thomas Power. In 1911 among the tenements of Mabbot Street and Tyrone Street ,17 families kept lodgers, most despite living in a single room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-ys1C4-kHc

Take the time to listen to some readings from "Strumpet City" written by James Plunkett (1969)  set in Dublin during the time of the "lock-out"

Seamus Heaney

Bog Queen

I lay waiting
between turf-face and demesne wall,
between heathery levels
and glass-toothed stone.

My body was braille
for the creeping influences:
dawn suns groped over my head
and cooled at my feet,

through my fabrics and skins
the seeps of winter
digested me,
the illiterate roots

pondered and died
in the cavings
of stomach and socket.
I lay waiting

on the gravel bottom,
my brain darkening,
a jar of spawn
fermenting underground

dreams of Baltic amber.
Bruised berries under my nails,
the vital hoard reducing
in the crock of the pelvis.

My diadem grew carious,
gemstones dropped
in the peat floe
like the bearings of history.

My sash was a black glacier
wrinkling, dyed weaves
and phoenician stitchwork
retted on my breasts'

soft moraines.
I knew winter cold
like the nuzzle of fjords
at my thighs–

the soaked fledge, the heavy
swaddle of hides.

An Irish Lament : Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire

This is  a translation into English of a poem originally written in Irish. It is called Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire – A Cry for Art O’Leary. The poem was composed by a woman, Eileen O’Connell. It is a cry of grief, of revenge, of love, of hated, and of a deep, frustrated passion for justice. Art O’Leary was Eileen O’Connell’s husband. He was shot by a man named Morris because he refused to sell his horse to Morris for five pounds. According to the 18th century penal law in Ireland, a Catholic had to sell his horse to a protestant, if the protestant asked him, for five pounds or under. O’Leary refused to sell his horse. Morris shot him. Eileen O’Connell composed her Caoineadh – her cry for her husband This lament was in the oral tradition and spoken on the spot following her husband murder,it is in the form of the traditional "caoineadh" or lament following the death of a loved one

A Cry for Art O’Leary

(from The IRISH OF EIBHLIN NI CHONAILL,
Translated by Brendan Kennelly)
My love
The first time I saw you
From the top of the market
My eyes covered you
My heart went out to you
I left my friends for you
Threw away my home for you
What else could I do?
You got the best rooms for me
All in order for me
Ovens burning for me
Fresh trout caught for me
Choice meat for me
In the best of beds I stretched
Till milling-time hummed for me
You made the whole world
Pleasing to me
White rider of love!
I love your silver-hilted sword
How your beaver hat became you
With its band of gold
Your friendly homespun suit
Revealed your body
Your pin of glinting silver
Glittered in your shirt
On your horse in style
You were sensitive pale-faced
Having journeyed overseas
The English respected you
Bowing to the ground
Not because they loved you
But true to their hearts’ hate
They’re the ones who killed you
Darling of my heart
My lover
My love’s creature
Pride of Immokelly
To me you were not dead
Till your great mare came to me
Her bridle dragging ground
Her head with your startling blood
Your blood upon the saddle
You rode in your prime
I didn’t wait to clean it
I leaped across my bed
I leaped then to the gate
I leaped upon your mare
I clapped my hands in frenzy
I followed every sign
With all the skill I knew
Until I found you lying
Dead near a furze bush
Without pope or bishop
Or cleric or priest
To say a prayer for you
Only a crooked wasted hag
Throwing your cloak across you
I could no nothing then
In the sight of God
But go on my knees
And kiss your face
And drink your free blood
My man!
Going out the gate
You turned back again
Kissed the two children
Threw a kiss at me
Saying “Eileen, woman, try
To get this house in order,
Do your best for us
I must be going now
I’ll not be home again.”
I thought that you were joking
You my laughing man.
My man!
My Art O’Leary
Up on your horse now
Ride out to Macroom
And then to Inchigeela
Take a bottle of wine
Like your people before you
Rise up
My Art O’Leary
Of the sword of love
Put on your clothes
Your black beaver
Your black gloves
Take down your whip
Your mare is waiting
Go east by the thin road
Every bush will salute you
Every stream will speak to you
Men and women acknowledge you
They know a great man
When they set eyes on him
God’s curse on you, Morris
God’s curse on your treachery
You swept my man from me
The man of my children
Two children play in the house
A third lives in me
He won’t come alive from me
My heart’s wound
Why as I not with you
When you were shot
That I might take the bullet
In my own body?
Then you’d had gone free
Rider of the grey eye
And followed them
Who’d murdered me
My man!
I look at you now
All I know of a hero
True man with true heart
Stuck in a coffin
You fished the clean streams
Drank nightlong in halls
Among frank-breasted women
I miss you
My man!
I am crying for you
In far derrynane
In yellow-appled Carren
Where many a horseman
And vigilant woman
Would be quick to join
In crying for you
Art O’Leary
My laughing man
O crying women
Long live your crying
Till Art O’Leary
Goes back to school
On a fateful day
Not for books and music
But for stones and clay
My man!
The corn is stacked
The cows are milked
My heart is a lump of grief
I will never be healed
Till Art O’Leary
Comes back to me
I am a locked trunk
The key is lost
I must wait till rust
Devours the screw
O my best friend
Art O’Leary
Son of Conor
Son of Cadach
Son of Lewis
East from wooden glens
West from girlish hills
Yellow nuts budge from branches
Apples laugh like small suns
At once they laughed
Throughout my girlhood
It is no cause for wonder
If bonfires lit O’Leary country
Or holy Gougane Barra
After the clean-gripping rider
The robust hunter
Panting towards the kill
Your own hounds lagged behind you
O horseman of the summoning eyes
What happened you last night?
My only whole belief
Was that you could not die
For I was your protection
My heart! My grief!
My man! My darling!
In Cork
I had this vision
Lying in my bed:
A glen of withered trees
A home heart-broken
Strangled hunting-hounds
Choked birds
And you
Drying on a hillside
Art O’Leary
My one man
Your blood running crazily
Over earth and stone
Jesus Christ knows well
I’ll wear no cap
No mourning dress
No solemn shoes
No bridle on my horse
No grief-signs in my house
But test instead
The wisdom of the law
I’ll cross the sea
To speak to the King
If he ignores me
I’ll come back home
To find the man
Who murdered my man
Morris, because of you
My man is dead
Is there a man in Ireland
To put a bullet through your head?
Women, white women of the mill
I give my love to you
For the poetry you made
For Art O’Leary
Rider of the brown mare
Deep women-rhythms of blood
The fiercest and the sweetest
Since time began
Singing of this cry I woman make
For my man

Take the time to listen to this clip it will give you a feel for the Irish version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F02VhJ_g3xY

Brendan Kennelly : Poem from a Three Year Old

And will the flowers die?

And will the people die?

And every day do you grow old, do I
grow old, no I’m not old, do
flowers grow old?

Old things – do you throw them out?

Do you throw old people out?

And how you know a flower that’s old?

The petals fall, the petals fall from flowers,
and do the petals fall from people too,
every day more petals fall until the
floor where I would like to play I
want to play is covered with old
flowers and people all the same
together lying there with petals fallen
on the dirty floor I want to play
the floor you come and sweep
with the huge broom.

The dirt you sweep, what happens that,
what happens all the dirt you sweep
from flowers and people, what
happens all the dirt? Is all the
dirt what’s left of flowers and
people, all the dirt there in a
heap under the huge broom that
sweeps everything away?

Why you work so hard, why brush
and sweep to make a heap of dirt?
And who will bring new flowers?
And who will bring new people? Who will
bring new flowers to put in water
where no petals fall on to the
floor where I would like to
play? Who will bring new flowers
that will not hang their heads
like tired old people wanting sleep?
Who will bring new flowers that
do not split and shrivel every
day? And if we have new flowers,
will we have new people too to
keep the flowers alive and give
them water?

And will the new young flowers die?

And will the new young people die?

And why?

(Brendan Kennelly) 

Comeragh Mountains : Wild Festival Full Moon Walk

Comeraghs Wild Festival. Pictured are some of the hikers at the Full Moon Walk in the Comeragh Mountains. The image was taken at the weekend at the Full Moon Walk in the Comeraghs with international mountaineer Michael Whelan and was one of the highlights of the inaugural Comeraghs Wild Festival


 

Paula Meehan: Irish Professor of Poetry

DEATH OF A FIELD

 

The field itself is lost the morning it becomes a site
When the Notice goes up: Fingal County Council – 44 houses

The memory of the field is lost with the loss of its herbs

Though the woodpigeons in the willow
And the finches in what’s left of the hawthorn hedge
And the wagtail in the elder
Sing on their hungry summer song

The magpies sound like flying castanets

And the memory of the field disappears with its flora:
Who can know the yearning of yarrow
Or the plight of the scarlet pimpernel
Whose true colour is orange?

And the end of the field is the end of the hidey holes
Where first smokes, first tokes, first gropes
Were had to the scentless mayweed

The end of the field as we know it is the start of the estate
The site to be planted with houses each two or three bedroom
Nest of sorrow and chemical, cargo of joy

The end of dandelion is the start of Flash
The end of dock is the start of Pledge
The end of teazel is the start of Ariel
The end of primrose is the start of Brillo
The end of thistle is the start of Bounce
The end of sloe is the start of Oxyaction
The end of herb robert is the start of Brasso
The end of eyebright is the start of Fairy

Who amongst us is able to number the end of grasses
To number the losses of each seeding head?

                                         I’ll walk out once
Barefoot under the moon to know the field
Through the soles of my feet to hear
The myriad leaf lives green and singing
The million million cycles of being in wing

That – before the field become solely map memory
In some archive of some architect’s screen
I might possess it or it possess me
Through its night dew, its moon white caul
Its slick and shine and its prolifigacy
In every wingbeat in every beat of time

© 2005, Paula Meehan

 

 

Today Dublin’s “informal poet laureate” Paula Meehan has been named Ireland Professor of Poetry.

The poet and playwright is the second woman to be awarded the prestigious post, set up in 1998 after the late Seamus Heaney won the Nobel prize for literature. Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill held the post from 2001-2004

Meehan, who has worked with prisoners and people from disadvantaged backgrounds, is regarded as giving a voice to people and places that are often marginalised and forgotten.

Paula Meehan reading "Death of a Field"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYnyU7CkXjU

I attended a poetry reading given by Paula Meehan a few years ago I knew very little about her work but this poem won me over. It has particular meaning looking back on the building boom in Ireland followed by the bust..ghost estates etc...beautiful sites totally destroyed by greedy developers.

 

 

 

Mahon Falls:Comeragh Mts

The Comeragh Mts.

Waterford Mts.

Thanks to Dooceys Bar for the photo

Seamus Heaney Poet April 1939- August 2013

 The Skunk by Seamus Heaney


Up, black, striped and damasked like the chasuble
At a funeral mass, the skunk’s tail
Paraded the skunk. Night after night
I expected her like a visitor.
The refrigerator whinnied into silence.
My desk light softened beyond the veranda.
Small oranges loomed in the orange tree.
I began to be tense as a voyeur.
After eleven years i was composing
Love-letters again, broaching the ‘wife’
Like a stored cask, as if its slender vowel
Had mutated into the night earth and air
Of California. The beautiful, useless
Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absence.
The aftermath of a mouthful of wine
Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow.
And there she was, the intent and glamorous,
Ordinary, mysterious skunk,
Mythologized, demythologized,
Snuffing the boards five feet beyond me.
It all came back to me last night, stirred
By the soot fall of your things at bedtime,
Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer
For the black plunge-line nightdress


Skunk is a poem by Seamus Heaney about his married life. The poem is a
tribute to his wife – how living away from home has caused him to miss
his married life. Exiled from his wife, Heaney  recalls the skunk
which reminds him of his wife.There are two settings in this poem. The first five stanzas are based
on memories of California nights, and the last stanza is a recent
memory of waiting in bed for his wife as she changed into her
nightdress.





World-renowned poet and playwright Seamus Heaney has died at the age of 74.He was born to a farming family at Mossbawn near Bellaghy in Co Derry on 13 April 1939.Mr Heaney was educated at the St Columb's College Catholic boarding school in Derry.His upbringing often played out in the poetry he wrote in later years
He was awarded numerous prizes over the years and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995.
Among the academic posts he held were professorships at Harvard and Oxford universities.
He was an honorary fellow at Trinity College Dublin and last year was bestowed with the Seamus Heaney Professorship in Irish Writing at the university, which he described as a great honour.















.

                               

 

Magic Road near Mahon Falls Waterford : Bothar Draiochta

There is a magic road at the Mahon Falls in Co Waterford. Folklore has it  that during the last war the local council built a road through a fairy glen in order to harvest turf (peat). The fairies cursed the place and made everything appear to go backwards. It is also worth noting that the turf harvested from this area was part of the consignment that caused the collapse of the Jail wall in Waterford resulting in the loss of life.Drivers claim that even when their car engines are switched off cars still roll uphill at a section of road in the Comeragh Mountains

Bog Bodies

The mummified remains of a body found in a Laois bog two years ago have been found to date back to 2,000BC, making it the oldest “bog body” discovered anywhere in the world.

He is believed to have met a violent death.“All the indications are that the human remains from Cashel Bog tell of the fate of a young king who, through folly or misadventure, was deemed to have failed to appease the goddess on whose benevolence his people depended, and who paid the ultimate price,” 

The chemical composition of bogs can preserve human bodies for thousands of years.

Archaeologists have discovered more than 100 ancient bodies in Irish bogs but few as well-preserved as “Cashel man”.

West Cork tonight

Paul Cunningham's photo

The Feminine in Irish Mythology

In early Irish mythology and legend, the feminine is quite dominant in the otherworld as well as on earth. The land of Ireland and features of its landscape such as mountains, rivers and lakes were frequently associated with goddesses and other supernatural females.In mythology, it was Ériu who gave her name to Ireland but the names of her two sister goddesses Banba and Fodla were also used.The Hill of Tara commemorates the name of a queen called Téa The list is endless
 One, much more frightening and morbid, but arguably more interesting creature of legend is the banshee. These ghost-women appeared in many Irish folktales
A banshee, or Bean Sidhe, is a fairy from Irish folklore whose scream was an omen of death. Her thin scream is referred to as “caoine,” which translates to “keening.” It is said that a banshee’s cry predicts the death of a member of one of Ireland’s five major families: the O’Grady’s, the O’Neills, the O’Briens, the O’Connors or the Kavanaghs. Over time as families blended, it was said that most Irish families had their own banshee. It is also said that the banshees followed their families as they emigrated from Ireland to other places across the globe, though some stayed behind to grieve at the original family estate.
Various versions of the banshee have been described, from a woman with long, red hair and very pale skin to an older woman with stringy, gray hair, rotten teeth and fiery red eyes. She is often depicted with a comb in her hair and this has led to an Irish superstition that finding a comb on the ground is considered bad luck. It is believed that a single banshee can take on any of these forms and shift between them, much like the goddesses of Celtic folklore

It is unknown precisely when stories of the banshee first were told, but they can be traced back as far as the early eighth century. It is believed they were based on an old Irish tradition where women would sing a lament to signify one’s passing. This too was referred to as keening

It is said that if a banshee becomes aware of a human’s presence watching her, she will disappear into a cloud of mist. When she does, it is accompanied by a fluttering sound like a bird flapping its wings. The Irish do not believe the banshee causes death, but merely warns of it. Although during the Middle Ages it was said that the banshee would also protect the souls of those of good heart and deed after they had passed on.

There is a list of Irish surnames who are known to have a Banshee keen for them My mother's maiden name was Brennan which is one of the names included, I've been reassured the Banshee will cry for me on my passing. If your name is not on the list don’t fret about it. Your family may be one touched by the fairy music instead

Irish Funerals: Caoiners

"The Irish have been always remarkable for their funeral lamentations
 "The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes, and ornamented with flowers, was placed on a bier, or some elevated spot. The relations and caoiners (singing mourners) then arranged themselves in two divisions, one at the head, the other at the foot of the corpse.
Until about the middle of the last century, the custom was very generally adhered to in Ireland, and many of the elegiac poems, composed on such occasions, have come down to us,Usually, this role was for a woman who sat in the next room until the funeral Professional mourners wore long red skirts and black shawls

This is an example of such a lament

 "Lament of Morian Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke," which is literally translated from the original Irish.


"Silence prevails; it is an awful silence. The voice of Mary is heard no longer in the valley.
"Yes, thou art gone, O Mary! but Morian Shehone will raise the song of woe, and bewail thy fate.
"Snow white was thy virtue; the youths gazed on thee with rapture; and old age listened with pleasure to the soft music of thy tongue.
"Thy beauty was brighter than the sun which shone around thee, O Mary! but thy sun is set, and has left the soul of thy friend in darkness.
"Sorrow for thee is dumb, save the wailings of Morian Shehone; and grief has not yet tears to shed for Mary.
"I have cried over the rich man; but when the stone was laid upon his grave, my grief was at an end. Not so with my heart's darling; the grave cannot hide Mary from the view of Morian Shehone.
"I see her in the four corners of her habitation, which was once gilded by her presence.
"Thou didst not fall off like a withered leaf, which hangs trembling and insecure: no, it was a rude blast which brought thee to the dust, O Mary!
"Hadst thou not friends? Hadst thou not bread to eat, and raiment to put on? Hadst thou not youth and beauty, Mary? Then mightest thou not have been happy?
"But the spoiler came, and disordered my peace: the grim tyrant has taken away my only support in Mary!
"In thy state of probation, thou wert  kind hearted to all, and none envied thee thy good fortune. Oh! that the lamentations of thy friends—Oh! that the burning tears of Morian Shehone could bring back from the grave the peerless Mary!
"But alas! this cannot be: then twice in every year, while the virgins of the valley celebrate the birth and death of Mary, under the wide spreading elm, let her spirit hover round them, and teach them to emulate her virtues.
"So falls into the depth of silence the lament of Morian Shehone."


Take the time to listen to Iarla O Lionaird   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JEiuM_eHuw

Ormonde Castle Carrick on Suir

Ormonde Castle in Carrick on Suir, County Tipperary was acquired by the Butler Family in 1315
Ormond Castle is the best example of an Elizabethan manor house in Ireland. It was built by Thomas, the 10th Earl of Ormond in the 1560s. Closely integrated into the manor house are two 15th century towers. It is the country's only major unfortified dwelling from that turbulent period
Following the death of James Butler in the late 17th Century the house remained empty until the middle of the 20th century. In 1947 the house was taken over by the state who undertook a programme of restoration.





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Ormonde Castle is part tower house with a built-on Manor House. The original castle  fell into ruin. You can see how two of the four original Irish castle towers are incorporated in the Tudor  manor house. . The murder holes and guardrooms were not included in the manor house plans, as  defence was replaced by style.

Irish Dancers Flash Mob

Visitors to Dublin Airport were treated and surprised with an incredible 'flashmob' from the cast of 'Take The Floor 2013'."Take the Floor 2013" is an Irish dance show like no other. The 60 dancers along with  musical accompaniment from Beoga, are creating the entire show in just 10 days.

This is a taste of what the show has to offer


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ff_uLoEBEo

Irish Folklore : Seanachai

 In the days before books and printing, there were  people called seanachai or storytellers. These folklorists made their living by traveling from village to village and telling stories. Sometimes their  tales would be  from the great volume of folklore that makes up the mythology of Ireland and other times they’d just use local gossip and stories from neighbouring townslands.  They were always entertaining and well received by the locals
 The wonderful part is that centuries later, when Gaelic was being systematically suppressed, people calling themselves seanachai would travel from town to town seemingly for the sole purpose of carrying on the ancient tradition of telling stories. At night they would loiter in the pubs and tell their stories but during the day  they would gather the children, lead them off into the countryside to teach them the Irish language and culture in secret. These were called "hedge schools" because the class was held under the cover of the hedges




http://theirishinstories.com/826how-to-tell-a-story-the-seanachai-eamon-Kelly

Take the time to watch this clip of Eamonn Kelly renowned seanachai and his colourful Kerry accent

Eamon Kelly (1914–2001) was an actor and seanchaí* from the south-west of Ireland

Irish Artist Kevin Sharkey

Reality is Overrated




Sant Carles



Born in Dublin, in 1962 and adopted and reared in Killybegs, a remote fishing town on the northwest coast of Ireland. Sharkey has lived in London, New York and Ibiza and is now based in both Ireland and Spain. The self-taught and highly-acclaimed artist is one of Ireland’s most successful and thought-provoking artists. A full-time artist for the last 14 years, Sharkey was formerly a fisherman and a television presenter in Ireland and the UK, the artist’s vividly colourful and boldly expressive paintings and sculptures are sought-after by collectors worldwide. Sharkey has had a string of sellout exhibitions over the last few years, including ‘Alchemy’, his premier show at his Dublin gallery which sold out within 48 hours in Spring 2006 and his ‘Dreamscapes’ showing in Summer 2005 with Irish art ‘giants’, the late Tony O’ Malley, Louie Le Brocquy and William Crozier.

Hermann Hesse Happiness

Something I need to remind myself of more often.  ‘Siddhartha’ and Steppenwolfe are due a reread ,I have never read The Glass Bead Game its on my to do list

Happiness
 As long as you chase happiness,
you are not ready to be happy,
even if you owned everything.

As long as you lament a loss,
run after prizes in restless races,
you have not yet known peace.

But when you have moved beyond desire,
become a stranger to your goals and longings
and call no longer on happiness by name,

then your heart rises calmly
above the ebb and flow of action
and peace has reached your soul.

Folklore Fairy Trees

The Fairy Tree is usually a whitethorn (cartages monogzna) also referred to as a hawthorn or sceach in Irish. Until the twentieth century it was considered irreverent to use the term fairy tree and is still sometimes referred to as a lone bush or a thorn.

While it forms an important part of the hedgerow it is the solitary hawthorn which instils fear and even if its position is inconvenient it will generally be left alone. The warnings have been passed down through the generations. Otherworld creatures are said to either live in or nearby the tree and it has often been recorded how passers-by would hear music or see a bright light coming from the vicinity of the hawthorn.

Tales of misfortune befalling those who damage the hawthorn in any way are legion. There are accounts whereby the tree started to bleed when branches were cut away, which was a warning of things to come. This may be a legacy from a time when certain, among them the hawthorn, were considered sacred

 

 

 

Perhaps the most famous hawthorn is the one located at Latoon in County Clare. In 1999 the motorway from Limerick to Galway was delayed and eventually rerouted to avoid damaging the fairy tree there


Take the time to listen to Eddie Lenihan  folklorist, writer and lecturer He is one of the few practising seanchaithe remaining in Ireland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpXnIs57678

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

George Bernard Shaw

Clonmel Junction Festival, The Animals and the Children took to the Streets

Another spectacular piece of theatre tonight in Clonmel A dark animated film projected onto the backdrop of the stage while the three performers poke their heads and bodies through the screens interacting with the shapes and shadows of the film. They become live performers in a movie.




You know that overused saying: “You’ve never seen anything quite like it!”? I went to “The Animals and Children Took to the Streets,” a 70-minute performance piece that raises to a mesmerizing level the interplay on a stage of music, animation, live action and elements of a graphic novel.
And, well, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Watch this clip on youtube to get a feel for the show.....enjoy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHDYDnhn4Fo
 

Terryglass Tipperary

The  shore of Lough Derg where the River Shannon enters the Lough.

There's no place more beautiful than Ireland in the sun

Whitebay Cork. Great day on the beach




Yesterday and today were the hottest days of the year so far. Summer we love you

Clonmel Junction Festival

Just seen "Fred and Alice" tonight at Moran's pub, it's  a must see

A celebration of individuality.

It’s not easy to get by in this crazy old world. But Fred and Alice have discovered that all you really need are 2 tennis rackets, a freezer full of ready meals and an immature coping strategy.


Fred and Alice first met in the home. It wasn’t really a home but Fred always called it a home because that was where he lived, and if you are not living at home then where are you? It was love at first sight for Alice. She was crying because she had spilt her milk she was lying on the floor something she now realises was an incorrect response to the situation .Alice  will always remember Fred's first words to her "GET UP" and he didn't speak to her again for years. Eventually Fred got used to her and it was love at first sight for him too.

From their days in care, to independent living, Fred and Alice negotiate the perils and pitfalls of home cooking, responsible pet care and boiler maintenance.

With the support of one another, we see the characters rise above the stigmas of mental disability and emerge from the pitfalls of despair, hand in hand and head lining Wembley.

 A blistering head wreck played at a hilarious pace!

Gurteen Castle Kilsheelan Tipperary

Gurteen Castle, the former home of the Count De la Poer; a Knight of Malta is a magnificent granite neo Gothic castle, situated on the south bank of the River Suir about 5 miles north of Clonmel.

The estate belonged to the de la Poer’s who had  a staunch devotion to the Catholic church. Count Edmund da la Poer who was Private Chamberlain to Pope Pius X commenced the building of the present castle in 1866.

Vienna-born artist, Gottfried Helnwein, who bought Gurteen Castle in Tipperary back in the early 1990s,  hosted celebrations for the marriage between Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese.



Wedding in 2005

Ireland's Alcatraz Spike Island

Known as Ireland’s Alcatraz, Spike Island has a long and varied history. The island is quite large at around 103 acres, lying off the lovely harbour town of Cobh in Cork. The first recorded habitation of Spike Island comes from the Early Medieval period. Saint Mochuda (also known as Saint Carthage), is said to have founded a monastic site on Spike in 635 AD.
It is thought that after his campaign in Ireland in the middle of the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell used Spike Island as a holding area for Irish Catholics who were being transported to work as indentured labourers on British plantations in the West Indies. This would not be the only time Spike Island served as a prison in its history.


In 1847 Spike Island again was used as a holding area for convicts before transportation to Australia and Tasmania. The convicts had a harsh life, and were used as forced labour to carry out numerous building programmes on the island, as well as constructing the docks and forts on the neighbouring Haulbowline Island. Conditions on the island were said to have been very poor.



A number of political prisoners were held on Spike Island following the 1848 Rebellion. John Mitchell was probably the best known of these prisoners: Mitchell was an Irish nationalist and journalist was held on Spike Island before his transportation to Tasmania. Mitchell managed to escape the hellish life on Tasmania and settled in America, where he became a prominent pro-slavery voice of the Confederate side during the American Civil War. By 1883 all prisoners had been removed from the island and it reverted to being used as a military base.

During the First World War, Spike Island became an important base of operations against the German submarine fleet. During the War of Independence, hundreds of political prisoners and Republicans were interned at Spike Island. Under the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Spike remained a British military base until 1938 when it was handed over to the Irish government. The Irish army and navy occupied the island, many living their with their families until 1985. The island served as a prison again, this time for young offenders, who remained on the island until 2004.

William Butler Yeats

Brown Penny


I WHISPERED, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

William Butler Yeats

 

 

 

Irish Weather

Dromoland Castle for afternoon tea

Ireland's Glenn MIiller Mick Delahunty's Band

Mick Delahunty: Ireland's Glen Miller 
1915 Clonmel - R.I.P. 1992 


With his band he travelled to England to perform on two separate occasions.  In 1959 they toured the States and Canada, the first Irish band to do so, returning there in 1961. He performed at New Ross, Co. Wexford during President John F. Kennedy's visit in 1963. Two years later he headed the entertainment line up at Powerscourt House in honour of Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco's visit to Ireland. 
By the 1960s the scene was changing. People were looking for a different type of music: rock and roll. The era of the big band was coming to an end. However, Mick continued to tour Ireland and perform right up until his death in the 1992. Proud to say he was my late Mother's cousin


Very old recording but worth a listen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIVJAFIK6TA

Irish Fairy Tales Contemporary Irish Author

7. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne – “Midwife to the Fairies”

In this story, a midwife is called on one night to assist a woman in labour, only to have to keep a terrible secret from the police in the days that follow.

       "  After a while they came to a steep hill. A door opened in the side of the hill and they went in. They rode until they came to a big house and inside there were lots of people, eating and drinking. In the corner of the house there lay a woman in labour."

Eilis Ni  Dhuibhne 

 It's a wonderful 'fairy tale', with all the darkness of that genre.

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