Books from the Attic, page 11
The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,
The howling dog by the door of the house,
The bat that lies in bed at noon,
All love to be out by the light of the moon.
But all of the things that belong to the day
Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;
And flowers and children close their eyes
Till up in the morning the sun shall rise.
R.L. Stevenson
Chapter 15
Surrounded by Water
In Ireland we are never too far from the sea to which we are connected by so many great rivers, into which run our countless smaller rivers, glaishes or streams. In the valley at the bottom of our farm was a winding river known as the Abha Caol (narrow river) into which all the glaishes of our farm found their way. Up this river every year from the sea came salmon to spawn in its quiet waters and here also came eels from the Sargasso Sea. As children we swam in that river, but were very aware of the eels from whom we kept a wary distance as we believed they had reversed teeth which they could use viciously on unwelcome intruders into their waters. The eels hovered in a deep, dark pool under a high shadowy bank and we gave this pool a wide berth and played in a much more open section upstream, which was sunnier and shallower. In late summer, when the hay was saved and before the harvesting of the wheat and barley began, we were taken to Ballybunion for a short holiday. It was the highlight of our year and we were completely overwhelmed by the magnificence of the sea, the towering grey cliffs and the dark deep caves into which the incoming tide thundered. If a ship appeared on the far horizon we sat on the strand watching in awe its progress on the skyline where it appeared to be travelling along the edge of the world. No wonder poems and stories about the sea appealed to us, and there were plenty of them in our schoolbooks.
Sea Fever
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day and the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way were the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
John Masefield
This next one was Con’s favourite poem. Many of the poems and lessons in this book have come from his old schoolbooks which he brought from his home in Islandave and arranged around his bedroom. He was a book lover, so his books soon overflowed out of his room and all around the house. After his untimely death from cancer, his books were stored up in the attic. One summer while all was still well he went on a long sailing holiday and came home bronzed and excited about the delights of the sea. He loved the sea and often on a visit to nearby Garretstown when walking along the beach would recite this favourite poem. Now, whenever I walk by the sea the words of this poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson also flood into my mind.
Break, Break, Break
Break, break, break
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Lord Tennyson
But as well as poems there were prose lessons too and they filled in the bigger picture, especially of the land of Ireland beyond our boundaries. The following lesson from the Land of Youth Readers written by Katharine Tynan extended our horizons. We found this hugely interesting because we had so many streams flowing through our land and were very familiar with every inch of them and with the wildlife they supported, and it was wonderful to link them to the great rivers of Ireland as Katharine Tynan does here – it made us feel part of a bigger picture.
Ireland of the Streams
She is the greenest country ever was seen. I think of the fat pasture lands at the gates of Dublin, as well I know them. In May they are drifts of greenness, with the cattle sunken to their knees. The meadows, white with daisies, gold with buttercups, are exceedingly bright and clean. Grass-green, milk-white, pure gold – these are fields of delight.
I think of the lavish Irish hedges and of the strip of grass white with daisies which runs along either side of the footpath. There is nearly always a clear stream running along the ditch. It has come down from the mountains, and is amberbrown in colour. It runs over pebbles that are pure gold and silver and precious stones, now and again getting dammed around a boulder, making a leap to escape, and coming around the boulder with a swirl and a few specks of foam floating upon it.
‘Ireland of the Streams’ is one of the old names for Ireland, and it is justified; for not only are there lordly rivers like the Shannon and the Blackwater, to mention but two of them, but there are innumerable little streams everywhere.
You can always kneel down on a summer’s day by one, cup your two hands, and drink your fill. You may track it, if you will, up to the mountains, where you will find it welling out, perhaps, through the fronds of a fern, the first tiny gush of it. You will find it widening out and almost hidden by a million flowers and plants that like to stand with their feet in water. Or you will see it cool and deep, with golden shadows sleeping in it, slipping round little boulders and clattering over stones, in a tremendous hurry to escape from these sweet places to the city, where it will find its way to the sea.
Where there are not rocks and stones and mountains, where there is cultivation in Ireland, there is leafage and grass of great luxuriousness. Of a wet summer in Ireland you could scarcely walk through the grass; it might meet above a child’s head.
I do not think the birds are as many as in England, perhaps because so much of Ireland is stripped of its woods; perhaps because Ireland has been slower to protect the birds; perhaps also because of the scantier population, which leaves the birds to suffer hunger in the winter. There are no nightingales in Ireland, but I do not think we have missed them, having the thrush and the blackbird, which seem to me to sing with a richer sweetness in Ireland that in England.
But the most characteristic note of the Irish summer is the corn-crake’s. Somehow the Irish corn-crake has a bigger note and is much more in evidence than his English brother.
Katharine Tynan
Now, many years later, as we read about the Dublin of Katharine Tynan’s time it comes as a bit of a shock to realise how much has changed in and around Dublin as well as in rural Ireland. On first meeting Gay Byrne in 1988 to be interviewed about my book To School through the Fields, I remarked that I had thought he might not get what it was all about, and he replied: ‘Dublin has changed as well, you know. I grew up not far from green fields.’ And that was right in the city near the South Circular Road! And Katharine Tynan, who was born in Dublin in 1859, had obviously grown up in a still greener Dublin.
Change is constant and when you stand on the bank of a river or stream the thought comes to mind that they are so timeless while we are so transient.
The Brook
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
Lord Tennyson
Chapter 16
Love of Place
One of the treasures I found in the attic was a collection of the work of Oliver Goldsmith. It had once been a beautiful leather-bound edition with its cover embossed in gold, but though it has now lost some of its lustre, it is still a gorgeous book. Old books never lose their elegance and maybe the years of use add to their appeal. Inside the cover is a fascinating notice saying:
Christian Schools Cork
Premium
awarded to
Nicholas English
for success in
Junior Grade
of the
Intermediate Examinations
1885.
Countless poems have been inspired by love of place. Goldsmith is probably the master of these remembrances, and the theme of his poems is universal. How many generations of Irish people have been comforted by the words of Goldsmith who is surely our poet of place? His Deserted Village is a long, meandering poem and we learned bits of it at different stages throughout our school years, as did generations before us. A poet from the Irish midlands, Goldsmith writes of a world long gone, but his words have a soothing rhythm that are timeless and as comforting today as when first written. When my world goes topsy turvy and I am unable to concentrate on reading prose, then poetry is the solace, and it goes straight into the centre of my struggle.
The Deserted Village
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheer’d the laboring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delay’d:
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loiter’d o’er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear’d each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm,
The shelter’d cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topp’d the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How oft have I bless’d the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old survey’d;
And many a gambol frolick’d o’er the ground,
And sleight of art and feats of strength went round;
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter titter’d round the place;
The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love,
The matron’s glance that would those looks reprove.
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e’en toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms – but all these charms are fled.
Oliver Goldsmith
My father learned The Deserted Village in school and loved to quote from it all his life, and indeed from many of the other poems that he had also learned. I think those poems enriched his life and deepened his appreciation of nature and the land that he worked. In his time the school curriculum was wide and varied and their far-seeing teacher introduced science subjects as well, so they experienced a broad spectrum of education. That generation of schoolchildren had no secondary-school education available to them, but the National Schools of the time had a seventh class and occasionally even an eighth class, and some of the teachers extended the lessons far beyond the curriculum. A good teacher can plant a seed that will germinate and blossom for a lifetime.
Maybe this is the reason that the section in The Deserted Village about the village schoolmaster clings to the minds of all who learned it in school. Would that we all had teachers like this one!
(The Village Schoolmaster) from The Deserted Village
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom’d furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill’d to rule,
The village master taught his little school:
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learn’d to trace
The day’s disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh’d with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Convey’d the dismal tidings when he frown’d:
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault,
The village all declared how much he knew,
’Twas certain he could write, and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e’en the story ran – that he could guage:
In arguing too, the parson own’d his skill,
For e’en though vanquish’d, he could argue still;
While words of learned length, and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame. The very spot
Where many a time he triumph’d, is forgot.
Oliver Goldsmith
These lines more than any others probably best capture the awe with which well-educated people were regarded by those for whom education was beyond reach.
Maybe as we are in The Deserted Village we should pay a visit to the village pastor? The majority of us in rural Ireland did not grow up with a village pastors but with a parish priest. Parish priests came in all shapes and sizes and with a huge diversity of personalities. It was a time when they wielded an unhealthy amount of power over their flocks. This turned some of them into control freaks, while others were kind and tolerant and walked in the footsteps of The Boss. Who a parish finished up with was all in the luck of the draw!
Before coming to live in Innishannon I had never encountered a Church of Ireland pastor and by the time I caught up with them they were known simply as ‘clergymen’. The title ‘pastor’ had faded away, which in one sense, I think, was a bit of a pity as it had a certain old-world paternal flavour. In my home town of Newmarket we had a Church of Ireland church building, but not a resident pastor. A resident pastor or clergyman does make all the difference. Having a church with a clergyman is a bit like having a resident TD in the parish, it puts a human face on head office.
The clergyman in Innishannon when I came to live here in the early sixties was Rev. Matchette, who lived in the fine old rectory surrounded by a large garden at the western end of the village. The most obvious and delightful difference between him and the parish priest was that he had a wonderful wife. The fact that she was a splendid woman and a great addition to parish life was an additional bonus for him and us. That they were a very ecumenical couple further added to their widespread appeal. Mrs Matchette joined the local ICA (Irish Countrywomen’s Association) and due to her position as a clergyman’s wife was well accustomed to running parish events – she opened my young, inexperienced eyes to the diplomatic skills necessary to manoeuvre a smooth pathway through sometimes stormy parish waters. She was a sure-footed negotiator through tricky parochial problems. When she later decided to do bed-and-breakfast in the Rectory we got to know each other much better as I was engaged in the same business. She was a wonderfully kind, broad-minded woman, which led me to think that every clergyman should have someone like her to enrich and extend parish life. Rev. Matchette was a quick-thinking, impatient man, who enjoyed listening to classical music. When I told him that I thought this music might go a little over my head he patiently explained that you did not necessarily need to understand to enjoy, which put me thinking. He showed me many values. One day on calling to the rectory I found him stripping paint off the magnificent staircase thus revealing its beautiful natural wood. He was a man of many talents. They were a wonderful couple and would have been a boon to any parish and we were lucky in Innishannon to have them – as indeed were the people in The Deserted Village with their pastor, even though in this poem Goldsmith did not give the pastor’s wife a look in. Sign of the times! Or maybe this particular pastor did not have a wife.
(The Village Pastor) from The Deserted Village
Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher’s modest mansion rose.
