The Blackbird Of Derrycairn by Austin Clarke

Stop, stop and listen for the bough top
Is whistling and the sun is brighter
Than God's own shadow in the cup now!
Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins
Will sound, Patric, as well at nightfall.

Faintly through mist of broken water
Fionn heard my melody in Norway.
He found the forest track, he brought back
This beak to gild the branch and tell, there,
Why men must welcome in the daylight.

He loved the breeze that warns the black grouse,
The shouts of gillies in the morning
When packs are counted and the swans cloud
Loch Erne, but more than all those voices
My throat rejoicing from the hawthorn.

In little cells behind a cashel,
Patric, no handbell gives a glad sound.
But knowledge is found among the branches.
Listen! That song that shakes my feathers
Will thong the leather of your satchels.

The Blackbird of Derrycairn

Austin Clarke

'one of the host of poetic ghosts'
The Blackbird of Derrycairn

The poem is a loose translation of an 18th Century ossianic lay written in the Fiannaíocht tradition in the form of the "dán díreach". The original poem was titled "Lón Doire an Chairn". Clarke's poem adapts the original to satisfy his purpose, as The Lost Heifer, there is a contemporary meaning to the poem. It is a criticism of a priest-ridden Ireland where the Catholic Church dominated the morality of Government resulting in strict censorship laws leading to the banning of works by major Irish writers such as Joyce and Clarke himself. Clarke hoped for an Ireland that would provide a climate in which art and literature could flourish unhindered and this hope is highlighted in the final lines of the poem. The poem uses the contrast between the outdoor life and the pagan religion of the Fiánna and the monastic disciplined Christianity associated with Early Christian Ireland. The contrast between the light of the sun (central power source in druidic Ireland) and the light of God (The source of all life in Christianity) is such that the light of God is but a shadow of sunlight "and the sun is brighter than God's own shadow". The sense of confinement associated with Christianity is extended to include the chalice, "than God's own shadow in the cup". The second point of contrast in the poem deals with the sounds associated with both creeds, monastic morning prayer is described as "my throat rejoycing from the hawthorn". Clarke also reflects on the sense of alienation from nature associated with Christianity.

In stanza's two and three, the poet paints magnificent scenes of Fiannaíocht life, which shows an Ireland full of life and where man and nature are compatible.

In stanza four, the image of Christianity is of "little cells behind a Cashel, where no handbell has a glad sound". The suggestion here is that the monastic way of life is unnatural and in order for it to survive it must be protected from the outside world.

(Content 'borrowed' from http://homepage.eircom.net/~splash/bird.html)

And with the approval of R.Dardis Clarke

I haven't been called 'fresh' in a while!

LAGAN LOVE

By Peter Murphy

In the 1980s, Ireland was on the brink – the Celtic Tiger was yet to arise and change the face, and faces, of Dublin with prosperity and foreigners. Volatile anger, shimmering myths and lachrymose poetry still ruled the night as rough-hewn workers and lost university students hefted pints at Grogan’s pub.

Stepping into the swirling blend of the old and the new is Janice, a young painter from Toronto, who has crossed the ocean to seek passion in her life and her art. Her affair with Aidan, Ireland’s rising poet, leads her through the veil of the Celtic Twilight to a place of reward and danger in Peter Murphy’s stunning debut novel LAGAN LOVE (The Fiction Studio, June 7, 2011).

Drawing on Ireland’s rich history and mellifluous ability to speak legend into art through such Irish geniuses as William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, Murphy weaves a tale that draws on Celtic lore as much as the hard facts of economic recovery. Into the lives of Janice and Aidan and their more practical friends walks the mysterious Gwen, who may be far more than the beautiful seductress she seems on the surface. 

Trailing Gwen like cigarette smoke in a tavern is the myth of the leanan sídhe, or lenanshee, a fairy spirit who inspires lovers to ever-greater creative heights – at a price. Can the levelheaded Sinead, who has dedicated herself to seizing new career opportunities, or the kind and romantic Ronan, keep their friends from being swept away by the Ireland that dwells just beneath the surface?

Evoking the days when the love for Ireland was hidden in the lyrics about a beautiful woman in the classic 15^th-century song, My Lagan Love, Murphy’s freshman novel reveals the complex layers of his homeland – as bracing as a pint on a chilly Dublin evening.

I look forward to introducing you to Ireland’s freshest literary voice.

Meryl L. Moss

My ‘zone’ is full of strangers.

With less than two months to go before Lagan Love is released.  I try to keep my head down. I am working on a new story but I am struggling with it. For me, and, I would assume, others, writing a book is a lot like interpreting a dream. The embryonic idea comes from somewhere – not unlike all of those ‘immaculate’ conceptions that seemed to plague so many young ladies throughout history – and sticks to something inside of me. It is not a matter of gestation; it is a matter of becoming possessed by a vague awareness that, if cultivated, becomes a notion that could become an idea.

And when I sit down to try to make the idea into a story anything can happen. I have to allow myself to drift – or force myself to plunge – into a different reality peopled by strangers that I have to get to know through excavation rather than creation.

Like many worthwhile things in life, this requires focus and commitment – getting in the zone where you are functional and effective in a strange environment – not unlike when I learned to do laundry while staying home with our newborn, changing diapers and catering to unreasoned demand. But that was so long ago now.

Life demands getting in the zone on a regular basis and I think that is a good thing because so much of life can be a mind-numbingly dull, or just plain disappointing – or just a humdrum of electronic buzz about the constant need to sate all needs and desires.

So I get into my zone and try to extract my story from the mists. Like in all good wanderings in the mist, shadows loom and look like people, or animals, or those strange unnerving images from the memory of mythology.

You know what I mean, nothing like a good scary walk in the mists to get the heart pumping. But if you can hold your nerve, wispy shapes and shadows can become as real as they were in mythology. I think of Poe and Mary Shelly and the mists they must have walked through. This is not to be confused with the mists of Malcolm Lowry, Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas, to name but a few.

For now, my zone is misty and full of strange new people that I have yet to come to understand. I now know not to get frustrated and to try to force themselves to reveal their character, it will come – I hope.

And when it does you can all get to meet them – the strange people of my zone.

Gambling with misery?

As the events in Japan dominate world news, I am reminded of a conversation I once had with a friend. Dave, a trader in the Toronto Stock Exchange, once confided that one of the more distasteful aspects of his job was that all human events – natural disasters, wars, uprisings, etc. – were distilled as fuel for speculation. He wondered how long he could stomach it.

Recently I watched something on David Suzuki during which he referred to the ‘market’ as a new mythology – not unlike the contrary deities that our ancestors appeased with sacrifices. It made perfect sense to me. The ‘markets’ have become a religious cult without logic and, like the gods and demons of the past; have come to dominate our lives.

Is it a measure of our humanity that we consider the plight of others through the narrow lens of economic well-being as interpreted by modern-day druids and shamans?

But I take heart in that throughout our history, we have abandoned beliefs when the stood between us and evolution. I think it is time to consign the market-cult to the scrapheap. It is time to evolve. It is time to place our humanity above self-destructive greed.

Our humanity is flawed by greed and selfishness but it is also where we draw compassion, empathy and consideration. It is our choice.

My Lagan Love

"My Lagan Love" is a traditional Irish song from the 15th to 16th century found in Donegal. It was written during a time in Irish history when it was forbidden to write openly about Ireland, or express love, devotion, or nationalism towards the country. The Irish had decided to write songs that indirectly would reference their love for their mother country; they would refer to Ireland as a beautiful woman. Hence, "My Lagan Love" speaks erotically and poetically about a beloved woman which is also a beloved homeland.  (Source – Wikipedia)

But I can’t help but think that there is more to it than that.
I would like to believe that this song is about another forbidden love – The Lenanshee!
At the time, 15^th and 16^th century, Ireland was still resisting foreign occupation – particularly in the lands of defiant clans – like the O’Donnell’s whose independent sovereignty survived until 1601.
The song has a haunting quality that whispers of the Old Ways, which, despite the suppressing efforts of Christianity, survive even if only as superstition.
I believe the song echoes the longing of some long dead Bard honouring his Muse! Hey, it makes as much sense as what the Irish people spent the last ten years believing in.

The cover, front and back, done. √

Time to start feeling good about it all but, to be honest, I will feel better when I see it in someone’s hands. It’s been an interesting journey. Moments of joy, frustration, doubts that I could actually see in the faces around me – concern that I had gone mad. I had!

But it was a good kind of madness – the kind that gave birth to some very interesting characters (if I may say so myself), who insisted on getting themselves into all kinds of difficult situations with themselves and the undercurrents of fate, Yes, I believe in stuff like that – we all do but we call it different names.

The story is very dear to me but not about me. It is about people and places I knew back when I was young and unaware that nothing lasts forever. I was very young and foolish and kind people looked-out for me. Lagan Love is for them – the living and the dead.