Lecture

on The Poetry of Sliabh Luachra

By Bertha McCullagh


Introduction:
Bertha was born in Castleisland and lived there, and in Tralee, during her childhood. Her
mothers family, the McGillicuddys, ran the Market Bar in Castleisland, a favourite for
traditional musicians. Bertha remembers Pdraig Cibh calling regularly, as well as sports
writer, raconteur and literary critic Con Houlihan, who took a great interest in, and
encouraged, Berthas love of literature from an early age. Bertha was educated, through the
medium of the Irish language, at Coliste de in Dingle. She went on to become a secondary
school teacher and principal, and a lecturer in Education at the Mater Dei Institute (DCU) and
at NUI Maynooth. She is an acknowledged authority on Irish and English literature and poetry.
Currently living in Limerick, among her other activities in the artistic and cultural world Bertha
is a Council member of Cuisle, Limerick Citys International Poetry Festival. So, I give you
Bertha McCullagh.

Bertha McCullagh: One thing - when I was speaking with Pat about poetry, and my interest in
literature growing up, and whatever, we were focusing of course very much on Sliabh Luachra;
and afterwards I thought that I might say tonight that while Sliabh Luachra figured largely,
because of the music of Sliabh Luachra and players came to my mothers home and to their
business a great deal, and that was my first interest I suppose in the area of Sliabh Luachra,
and the first time I heard of it, I have to say, that while music because my mother was a
lovely pianist and her family were very musical, and we had all those traditional people calling
- my great love of literature came from my father.

My dad loved all literature, but had a particular interest in drama and was very involved in
drama in Tralee. And he also had a huge love of poetry, and I remember him on evenings like
this in the summer-time, sitting in the armchair inside our sitting-room door and reading
poetry aloud to himself. I would sometimes wander into the hall, or into the room, and listen
to him. And I am thinking of him, obviously, very especially tonight, and all the others. And I
just thought Id add that, I suppose in fairness to him and because I was so lucky to have such
an awareness of music and sound and literature on both sides of the family.

I thought Id begin by saying a word or two about Sliabh Luachra. Sliabh Luachra is, you know,
such a vast area, but in a way undefined also. And it has produced some of Irelands greatest
poets, especially Aoghn Rathaille and Eoghan Rua Silleabhin. It has also been the
birthplace of An tAthair Dinneen, Patrick Dineen, who is responsible for our great Dictionary,
and also the birthplace of Toms Rathaille, Superior General of the Presentation Brothers
from 1905-1925, and indeed to other interesting literary people then and later.

I was reading something recently where somebody said, you know, described being asked,
Where exactly is Sliabh Luachra? And the answer was, he said to himself, You know, I dont
think Sliabh Luachra has ever been exactly defined, because its such a broad and extensive
area. Con Houlihan, whom Pat mentioned, the great journalist and writer and critic, when he
was asked about Sliabh Luachra, he said, I think its a state of mind. And in a way, isnt that a
wonderful description of an area which has given birth to so much, and that the state of mind
which must have permeated the area here over the centuries is obviously hugely significant.

Sliabh Luachra was first noted in the Annals of Inishfallen in 534, and that stated the King of
Luachar won a battle against Tuathail Mac Garbh. And it comes to that again in 741 with the
death of Cuara, the abbot of Bearna, son of Cormac, King of Luachra. Throughout the years,
and for many centuries, Sliabh Luachra was an area of very poor land, and indeed it was only
after Gearid Iarla, the Fifteenth Earl of Desmond, died, and even before that, you know, that
the land was so bad that it wasnt populated at all. And then, after the death of Gearid Iarla,
with the coming of the plantation of Leinster, and then terribly so after the defeat at Limerick,
at the Treaty of Limerick, so much hope was gone from the people of Ireland, they no longer
had even Bonnie Prince Charlie to look to any more, and the English crowded in on the area
around Sliabh Luachra, not Sliabh Luachra itself, but they found that it was very difficult to
persuade landlords to settle anywhere called Sliabh Luachra, which means the Mountain of
Rushes, very poor, very poor land. And then, in time, people from other areas moved in a
little, because all of the Irish people were suffering so terribly in those years, because of the
Penal Laws, that they had little to survive on and were growing more and more poor. But as
well as that, they were being pushed out of any land they had, or might previously have had
under the rule of the Irish chieftains, taoisighi, and so you find that people, like the OSullivans
of Kenmare, then moved into the edges of Sliabh Luachra and began to settle there. Then as
landlordism grew, more and more people, the Irish people, who were poor, who were
struggling, who were deprived, moved into the area, and of course it was a very lucky thing in
later times.

I thought Id mention two other things to do with the history of Sliabh Luachra, as a
background to what were speaking about, because I found them interesting and relevant.
There was a report called the James Weale Report, and this came about because the British
were so worried about all of the dealings, and underhand things, and threat that was
emanating to the British system, from the heart of Sliabh Luachra over the years. And so he
made a survey, and actually reported on it in the House of Commons in London. Whats
important about it is that it was the first time, as a result of his recommendations, and indeed
as the result of the recommendations of Nimmo, the man who was responsible for so many
piers and roads throughout the country, and Nimmos pier in Galway for example, but that for
the first time roads were built. And up to then horses carried the butter, as we all know, on
the Butter Road from Sliabh Luachra to Cork, and in 1830, I read, that Cork city was the largest
butter market in the world in that year.

Anyhow, to come closer to where we are now, arising out of that Report and the development
of the area, the Weale Report also recommended the erection of a town in Sliabh Luachra, and
the town that was created, or the village, was the village of Kingwilliamstown, which today we
know as Ballydesmond. So I thought Id take us that far in the history, since it is here this
evening that we are, and are thinking about it.

So, where is Sliabh Luachra and how far does it extend? It is a great area in distance and so
on, but also so rich in so many ways. Very marshy, rushy land in the old days, and bordering
the areas of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, including the Kerry parishes of Ballymacelligott, Cordal,
Brosna, all of those around Castleisland; Knocknagoshel, Barraduff, Gneeveguilla, Scartaglen,
Rathmore south from here; and then the Cork villages of Ballydesmond, Kiskeam, Rockchapel,
Knocknagree, Boherbue, Meelin and Freemount; and the Limerick villages of Tournafulla,
Templeglantine, Athea, Mountcollins and Abbeyfeale. And as I was reading that, I thought, no
wonder that that is where Donal and Pat chose to be married Templeglantine and I am
sure that it was one of the things which influenced Donals choice at the time. So I just
thought Id set us there, and see where we are, and why.

2

Aoghn Rathaille was one of the great poets of the area, and he would have come from, at
first, a comfortable family. He was an educated man, educated by the courts of poetry in the
greater Sliabh Luachra area south of it really, more in the southerly part of it. He was born
near Killarney and was more comfortable, but more than anything else, he lived early enough
to have experienced the Irish chieftains, the Irish noble families and then at the time where he
starts to write, it is just the time after 1691, that the Irish chieftains are losing their land, their
power, and that is something which quite often informs his poetry. He was a great writer of
the Aisling and he and Eoghan Rua Silleabhin would have been the two great writers of
the Aisling, and after them, Sen Clarch Mac Domhnaill. The Aisling, as I am sure we know,
was a poem form which developed because the Irish were so downtrodden, and because they
were still angry with, but afraid of, the invader. And one of the ways in which they continued
to fight this, and keep the spirit of the Irish alive, was in the Aisling. And the Aisling form, as
Im sure you all remember from school, was a poem where the poet would have a dream or a
trance-like sequence, and a beautiful girl, or a lovely lady, would come in a vision to him, and
then as the poem developed, those who were inside and knew, knew that the lovely lady or
the beautiful girl, was in fact Ireland. And one of the great exponents of the form was Aoghn
Rathaille.

But even before he wrote the Aisling, he did very often, you know, cry out in his poems about
the poor state of the Irish people. And, you know, the poets then were peasants in the best
sense of that word, poor and deprived. In one of his early poems he says,
[]

And the English translation:
My cattle are shelterless,
My team unfed,
In misery my people dwell,
Their elbows through their clothes,
A price is on my head at the landlords will,
My shoes are tattered,
And no wherewithal to make them good.

And he still hankered after the old days, the old days in which he grew up and where the noble
family, the Irish noble family round where he lived, were the MacCarthys, Mac Carthaigh Mr.
And for him, that was a terrible blow that those days were gone.

Aoghn, and Im sure you remember this as well as I do, how often Donal referred to Aoghn,
he would never say Aoghn Rathaille, he would just say Aoghn, as in Aoghn said, or as
Aoghn felt. And Im thinking of this as I say these words.

His work can be divided into three areas: elegies, satires and shorter lyrics. His elegies, twelve
of them, survive. There probably could be more in places, but they havent been found. His
elegies are very powerful, and their power is probably related to his education in genealogy.
He was lucky enough to have been educated in one of the last of the courts of poetry, growing
up near Killarney, and he uses the style of a litany always, where the litany of things, and of
bad things, or sadness, or sorrow, or loss, are listed like litanies; and it is something, I think,
which is very, very powerful in his elegies.

He constantly, constantly wrote about the Cromwellian people, the invaders, and in particular
he would, in his poems, have shown us the difference and the changes that had come about.
When he was only fifteen, at that stage, Bonnie Prince Charlie King James was the king, then

followed by Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Irish were full of hope. However, it didnt work
out that way, and the Cromwellians dominated.

And in one of his poems, he says, he is showing us what it was like with so many Cromwellian
people settling all around them:

[]

This is it translated into English, where he says:
No more red-coated
Whos there?
As the gate
He saw the least excuse
To raise a row and to
Have me quarrelling in the night.

[] amongst the English names,
and his accursed guard

Those devilish city apprentices
Who everywhere pillage consecrated chapels,
Plundering the priests of God
And executing them.

The Flight of the Earls followed then, you know that great period of hope, when it was thought
that things would pick up, and be brighter, and I think that was one of the greatest blows to
him also. At the time, after the Cromwellians, the Browns were the leading family, the
Viscounts of Kenmare, and they were Catholic and remained Catholic into the twentieth
century. One of the things that saddened him most was the fact that some of his own people
were turning from the faith and turning Protestant. They did so out of fear, and also in hopes
of some progress. And he cried out, in a poem,

Oh God,
Who art in Heaven,
Who hearest the tidings,
Oh King of miracles and Holy Father,
Why hast thou suffered the place
To be held by bears,
That they should have his rent
While he is straitened
For the want of it.

And he was lucky, in that he had been educated, but in his life view, and his vision, one would
describe him as aristocratic, noble. He wasnt a peasant or didnt come from that kind of
background. However, he felt that around him, thats what was happening all the time, and
the land being plundered. In another poem, hes talking about the land, and his own area, the
area around here, where
princely mines,
her woods and lime quarries,
where trees of old and young
Have been burnt and broken down
[]
Scattered and torn in foreign countries
Severed from one another.


And, as I say, he had that kind of litany-like style and approach, and theres great strength in it,
because theres power in any liturgy.

And Im stressing those because I think they show that he had a great sense of how noble
Ireland had been, and aristocratic sense, in the sense of being educated and coming from a
relatively comfortable background the exact opposite of Eoghan Rua Silleabhin who
followed.

As a person he could be quite surprising, and one of the stories I love about him which shows
on the one hand how educated he was, also shows us that he was a character with a sense of
humour, and that humour and wit were part of his everyday life. There is a story, and its
verified apparently, that he visited a bookshop in Cork, and he was of course a country man, a
peasant in town, and his English was all brogue. He took up a large and expensive classical
work and he asked the cost of it. And I suppose, because he looked so down, and anything but
wealthy or educated, the shop owner said hed give it to him, for nothing, if he could read it.
So hes looking at the book, and its upside down, or almost upside down the way hes reading
it, and its a classic, either Greek or Latin, and he managed somehow to read some of it, and
convince the owner to give it to him. And then, once hes got the book for nothing, he turns it
around the right way and rapidly, fluently reads the Greek, or the Latin. I thought it was, you
know, a human moment in the life of a great and very intellectual poet.

As well as that, there is a story also that, on the other hand, he did ordinary things and went to
ordinary places, and he speaks very well with the ordinary people. Soon after that episode in
the bookshop in Cork, he went to the local fair to sell his cattle, and when people asked him
about the price, you know, what hed sell them for, he said, My mother told me not to sell it
for less than this price, and acted as a sort of innocent as well, and playing a joke on them.

Anyhow, as I said, his work can be divided into three classes: elegies, satires and shorter lyrics.
His elegies are the great ones, I reckon, and he had a particular strength in that area, and one
or two beautiful and shorter lyrics. I think to understand him, I suppose, there is a story that
he told, and he referred to it in a poem, about when somebody had died, the son of one of the
ODonoghues of Mire N Cuibh the son of Mire N Cuibh died and a family member, who
wasnt Irish, came and knelt by the coffin and just blessed herself, and then the others, you
know the woman whose son had died, she screamed at her and said, Do you not know you
should come in a caoin over the corpse? You shouldnt just come in and be like that. Do you
not feel any sorrow or any sense of loss for us?

And when Aoghn wanted to write a long elegy, one of the things which we know hes rich in
is genealogy; and I mentioned to you before, thats one of the things that he had studied in
the school of poetry. And he wrote a poem about Diarmuid Laoighre from near Killarney.
Its a poem that goes on forever Im not going to read it but Ill list the stages of the
content of the poem. The terror caused by the death of Diarmuid (12 lines); the man himself
(20 lines); genealogical matter, his family and their history (50 lines on that).

Im not going to mention how many lines in others, but just to show that for him genealogy,
the background, probably going back to the earliest Irish rulers, probably going back to the
lord himself; about his prowess in sport and learning; the places known to him; and the people
who bewail him; the fairy women of the Gael bewail him; and he puts all this in the poem. I
love this one:
The rivers and mountains of Munster weep for him;
the gifts that were bestowed on him at birth;

his home is desolate;

his people are now defenceless;
and his wife is desolate too;
women will weep for him and all Munster will miss him.

And then the close of it, its a long poem, right, but its an amazing thing that apparently that is
a poem which most of the peasants knew off by heart, and even into the twentieth century
there were places in Sliabh Luachra, in Cork, in Kerry, where people could just chant a part of
that.

And in another elegy, one for Donal Callachin, he gives all his genealogy and again Ill just
read you some of it, just a few lines of it very quickly, in English:
Son of Callachin, the manly, the high-spirited, the vivacious,
son of Crothur, a noble who was bold and brave,
son of Donnach,
son of Taigh, the strength of the learned . . .

And that was it, the genealogy. His elegies are long, long poems. And his interest in education
and his love of genealogy certainly informed it very, very, very definitely.

And in talking again about, you know, in the elegy, about the sense of loss and how it
permeated everywhere, he talks about how the rivers of Munster, even, would mourn
somebody like that.


I suppose his greatest works are the works of his elegies. They are very much unique to him,
while some are in the tradition. Youll find him talking about sport on the hillside, and how
that had ended, or a note of homeliness

A well of milk for the weak,
And prostrate cow,
The poor their only door.

I think he constantly gives us, then, an insight into what Ireland was like in his own days. In
writing one of his satires, you know, a strong anti- one about a fellow poet, Donal, who I think
had written in a begrudging way about Aoghn Rathaille himself. The translation tells you
what its about, but it doesnt have the power of those words being pumped out, alliterative,
you know, with the strong vowel sounds involved in pattern. It is:
A fellow full of vermin
Of running eyes
A dirty gaunt wad,
A fugitive, vagabond,
Is a liar,
A slender hunchback,
A greasy swallower,
Who swallows every rubbish
Into his greedy maw.

And writing about him, and about that poem, Daniel Corkery, the great Cork critic and writer
himself, he said that some of the verses of that poem just werent fit to be quoted. So I didnt
go into it too deeply.

His lyrics are very, very powerful and, you know, when we come to those, and to the Aislings, I
think thats where his great power lies. Corkery said that he compared Aoghn to Dante,
and I think that must be a tremendous compliment to him, but meant it in all sincerity, and
explored and developed indeed by Corkery. He compares him to Dante also in that Aoghn
Rathaille, like Eoghan Rua Silleabhin, was very much a poet of place, his own place, Sliabh
Luachra and round it.

His greatest poem, a great Aisling, is Gile na Gile. Now usually when he would write, or he
would write an Aisling, or a poem that was condemning, it would be very bare and stark,
whereas Gile na Gile is a poem of great brightness and beautiful imagery. But it is also an
Aisling which is very beautiful. And since I think it is his outstanding poem, I thought Mairtn
would read for us as Gailge. It has a good many verses: you can leave out some of them.

And the Caengal at the end is the summing up. I just thought Id read that in English:
Oh my misery, my woe,
My sorrow and my anguish,
My bitter source of dolour
Is evermore, that she,
The loveliest of the lovely,
Should thus be left to languish
Amid a ruffian hoard,
Till the heroes cross the sea.

And that reminds us about what the poem is about: it is about Ireland, and how terrible that
Ireland (the loveliest of the lovely) should be left languishing until, hopefully, heroes cross the
sea. Because that hope of a hero coming to rescue Ireland was always in the Aisling, and I
think castigation of the invader is well summed up in the phrase amid a ruffian hoard. So,
thanks Mairtn.

Another one of the lyrical poems which he wrote, and which shows the very poetic and
creative side, is the Elegy he wrote for the three children of the Cronin family, Taigh Cronins
children:

Three melodious strings,
Three chasms in the earth,
Three sainted, holy children
Who fondly loved Christ.
Their three mouths,
Their three hearts,
Their three noble bodies
Beneath a stone,
Their three fair bright foreheads,
The prey of chafers.
It is ruin.

And we see how he can bemoan the fate of Ireland, and then in a very simple, but very
affectionate way, bemoan the loss of three children in one family.

Life wasnt easy for him, and we know very little about where he went, or stayed, or whatever,
but as time went on he became more and more poor, more and more like a peasant, like most
of the Irish, particularly the poets. And one of the poems which really shows us that, I think, is
where he describes a night where he cannot sleep, because a huge and terrible wave is
pounding outside. He had at this stage moved to Corca Dhuibhne, and Im sorry that Louis and
7

the others, who were to be here tonight, but unfortunately couldnt come, because there was
a special occasion for an tAthair Toms Hickey, and I think any of us who know Irish drama,
and Irish literature and so on, would know that in celebrating his ninetieth birthday, Louis had
to make a choice, and the group with him, otherwise he would have been here. But I
wondered what hed say, or think, that one of the darkest nights in Aoghns life was a night
close to the sea, when a huge wave was pounding in, and he couldnt sleep, and of course all
of the sadnesses and all of the things overwhelmed him. He says,

This truly wet night
Seems so long to me,
Without sleep, without snore,
Without cattle or wealth or sheep
Or horned cows.
The storm on the wave beside me
Has troubled my head,
And I was unused in my childhood
To dogfish and periwinkles.

And that was one of the things he found hardest as a poor poet, that when he moved to Corca
Dhuibhne he was having to feed on unfamiliar fish and shellfish. And later he says that hes
prepared to put up with his own suffering, if only the sea brought help to Ireland.


While he felt, you know, and knew, that his health was fading, and life was so hard for him, he
still had great courage and said,
For help I will not cry
Until Im put
In a narrow coffin.

And, you know, he talks, continuing in that same poem, about how he himself, his brain is
hurting, his entrails are pierced, and so on, but worse than anything else he says:
Our lands
Our shelter
Our woods
Our fair neighbourhood

He always identifies with the plight of Ireland and bemoans it far more than any loss to
himself.

And he died, not too old, but saddened, saddened, and always hoping that life would improve
for Ireland. He died then in 1720, if my wits are about me, and about twenty years later came
the next great Sliabh Luachra poet, Eoghan Rua Suilleabhin. And Im sure that there are
people here who would have some stories for us, now or later. Is Father JJ here? (Answer:
Hes not too well.) Is he not? Oh, sorry, because he, you know, when we were chatting
before about the poets of Sliabh Luachra, and about Eoghan Rua Suilleabhin, he had the
kinds of stories that the local people always told and remembered about Eoghan Rua.

Now, Eoghan Rua Suilleabhin was a very different person, from a different kind of
background, to Aoghn Rathaille. As I said, his family had moved into the rushy, poor land
of or his ancestors had moved into the rushy, poor land of Sliabh Luachra then, and it was a
place where there had been one of the last schools of poetry, and he grew up in a school of
poets, and he loved it from a very early stage. He was very lucky in that there was a classical
school, and there was a court of poetry still happening in the area, and for that reason the
8

value of poetry and literature was kept alive, especially in the area of Faha, and in the plain
below it, and he has written about the fact that on Sunday evenings, every Sunday evening, up
above there would be the gathering of poetry, and then down below, on the plain, there
would be hurling, and all of the local families would take part in that.

He always, himself, felt that he was less good than Aoghn, because he felt that he hadnt had
the same education. He did go to a school, there was a school, and he appreciated that, but he
wished that he could have been educated more broadly, especially in genealogy, and in a court
of poetry. And he would often say himself, that he felt that inadequacy: My head is empty of
poetry.

In his poems he did, of course, write poems of Aisling, (poems in praise of women). He did
write what are called Warrants, kind of humorous verses; they arent all that significant really.
He is a folk poet, but at the same time he is a literary man and he, in his time, wrote nineteen
Aislings; two songs about the settlers and the names (he wrote in the style of genealogy, and
very often about the settlers); poems about his own life and significant moments in his own
life; and he also wrote Satires, like Aoghn and many of the poets of Ireland; and then the
poems in praise of women.

He, again, was quite a bright and a very witty man, born on poor land, but he did very well in
school, in the local school, and he was lucky to have a poet as his teacher; and obviously there
would have been some stress then or emphasis, on that. He learned Latin and Greek, and he
also learned English; and in fact, he wrote some poems and an essay in English. He was very
clever, and on one occasion when he was quite young, he was late for school, and when he
was asked about what kept him late, he answered in a short little poem, two or three lines of
poetry; and that was one of the reasons then why his teacher, a poet as well, took such a keen
interest in him, and also encouraged him in his love of poetry. Regarding his reasons for being
late for school, he started off:
In the dew of the morning
When I was journeying,
When it was earlier [or too early] . . .

So he made a great impression on his teacher, who mightnt have said so at the time. He was
Eoghan Rua, a red-haired man, handsome and good looking, one understands, and he had
been born in Meentoges, here in Sliabh Luachra, near Gneeveguilla. And when he was
eighteen he opened a school there, and it didnt last long. And all we know is that something
happened, there was an incident, something not to his credit, and so that was the end of the
school. And I suppose its our first introduction to the fact that Eoghan Rua was brilliant, and a
great poet, but that he had, you know, little weaknesses, and maybe some of them not so
little, and there were times when he could have had, perhaps, more self control. I think we
see that in different ways. Im not condemning him in any way, its just something thats true,
that affected his life and his writing.

So then after that, he had no choice but to become a spalpn. The spalpni were people who
went off to work in different seasons and then returned to their home, after the turf was
brought in, and after all of the crops had been saved and brought in. So that during the time
of late summer and autumn especially, the spalpns would be on the road. They would always
go to areas of richer land, and so he headed for Limerick, north east and east Cork as well. And
then theyd come home at maybe Christmas time, when theyd come back, and so that was
the life he lived for a lot of years. He really had a hard life in many ways, and found it hard to
survive, I think, at times.
9


When he came back that first time, after the first bout of spalpneacht, at home there was a
confrontation going on, in the village and in the area, between the older and the younger men,
the married and the unmarried, and so he took the part of the younger ones and joined in, and
became a fighter for the younger men, you know, that is metaphorically speaking.

One of things, I think, which struck me when reading about him, at that stage, was that one of
the poems he wrote was a poem for an illegitimate child of his own, when he was less than
twenty, and he wrote a short poem about having to look after the child while the mother was
out.

Thats the kind of life then he had, the spalpn for the brighter months, and he would come
home in the winter, but always he was involved in poetry, and the life of the area, when he did
come back. He lived that way for ten years, from 1770 to 1780 and, as I say, we know little of
what he did; he was just wandering from place to place, looking for work, trying to survive,
maybe meeting up with some of the other spalpns and having a drink in a tavern, or whatever.

And then he became a teacher. He became the tutor of a family, a landed family, the Nagle
family. He had come to their area, or their place, and one of the women who worked there,
who worked for the family, wanted to write a letter, a letter of petition to the master of the
house. She couldnt write herself and she couldnt find anyone else who could write, and I
suppose that too tells us a lot about the wrongs and the deprivations of the Irish families. But
he wrote a letter for her anyway, to the Mister, and he wrote a letter in four languages. And
what a tribute to the schooling of the poor people in the schools, being taught by a poet-
master, because many of the poets would still have had training in the courts of poetry. And
then when the Mister saw the letter, of course, in four languages, he said, Who on earth
wrote this? and insisted on meeting Eoghan Rua, and then offered him the job of tutor, or
teacher, to the family. That would have been a comfortable moment or two. But then he left,
he left under a cloud, he had to leave, he had obviously transgressed in some way I suppose
we begin to speculate when we know that the man of the house, the Mister, hunted him and
chased him with a gun, and was shooting after him as he was leaving.

Then, you know, he was frightened and terrified at this stage, and he felt he couldnt stay
around, either as a spalpn or as a poet-teacher in winter-time, and that family, the Nagle
family, were living near . . . was it Kanturk one of the Cork towns and there was a British
army barracks there. And he felt that if he could get inside that, with a big stone wall between
him and Nagles gun . . . and so he went in there and joined the British army. And you can
imagine what that was like for him.

And then, in fact, he was mooted to go into the Navy, and he did. Life on board the ships in
those days was apparently utter torture, and he would have been in the fold of a ship of war,
with all kinds of people. John Masefield, the English poet and novelist, he wrote about that
time in the British navy, and he said, you know, that the people who were there, many of them
struggling on their own because they had no other way of surviving, were in absolute bad
company. And very often it was the filth of the prisons that were there, heading out on the
ships. Anyway, the ship that he was on himself was heading for the West Indies, and before
they got to the West Indies, they caught up with a ship which was being led by the leader of
the French army, and it was against the French army they were fighting for the dominance of
the West Indies. And there was a battle, a battle which lasted from seven in the morning until
nearly midnight. And the intensity of the battle their ship was the main one leading the
fleet, which was in the hands of the British Admiral of State, the leading admiral in England, a
10

man called Rodney. They were successful, and they conquered the French and it was a great
moment. And that led to him writing a great poem, which is called Rodneys Glory. Im sure
that some of you people from Sliabh Luachra, who are really into the music and the dancing,
will know the dance. There is a set dance called Rodneys Glory, which indeed, the dance part
of it then, was created by a man called Muirn from Listowel. But it grew out of the episode
where he was sent packing from the teaching job, the tutoring in the house, sailing out to the
West Indies, and surviving, indeed, for which he was very, very lucky, and it was written in
English. And remember I said that when he was in school he did very well, and learned English,
and could write quite well in it:

Rodneys Glory: Im reading it in English because it was written in English, and it was obviously
in praise of the Admiral, who had led them.

Rodneys Glory
Give ear, ye British hearts of gold,
That e'er disdain to be controlled,
Good news to you I will unfold,
'Tis of brave Rodney's glory,
Who always bore a noble heart,
And from his colours ne'er would start,
But always took his country's part
Against each foe who dared t'oppose
Or blast the bloom of England's Rose,
So now observe my story.

'Twas in the year of Eighty Two,
The Frenchmen know full well 'tis true,
Brave Rodney did their fleet subdue,
Not far from Old Fort Royal.
Full early by the morning light,
The proud De Grasse appeared in sight,*
And thought brave Rodney to affright,
With colours spread at each mast-head,
Long pendants, too, both white and red,
A signal for engagement.

(* De Grasse was the French general)

Now its a very long poem then, which describes all of the tactics and manoeuvres, all inspired,
ordered, by Admiral Rodney, and he says,

So well our quarters we maintained,
Five captured ships we have obtained,
And thousands of their men were slain,
During this hot engagement;
Our British metal flew like hail,
Until at length the French turned tail,
Drew in their colours and made sail
In deep distress, as you may guess,
And when they got in readiness
They sailed down to Fort Royal.

Now may prosperity attend
Brave Rodney and his Irishmen,
And may he never want a friend

11

While he shall reign commander;

Success to our Irish officers,
Seamen bold and jolly tars,
Who like darling sons of Mars
Take delight in the fight
And vindicate bold England's right
And die for Erin's glory.

The ode was sent to the Admiral, and indeed he had written it hoping to impress the Admiral,
and the Admiral asked to meet the poet. The officer who brought Eoghan Rua to meet
Rodney, in his glory, was a man named McCarthy, a Kerry man. Anyhow, when Eoghan Rua
met Rodney, Rodney offered him promotion, but Eoghan said he wouldnt like promotion, he
would prefer instead to be free. But McCarthy intervened and said, We couldnt part with
you for love or money, and so that was it, Eoghan Rua stayed. He did get promotion, but he
said to McCarthy, I will play another trick on you lot. And he was very, very sad and
depressed, and disappointed by that. Anyhow, in time, maybe as a result of that, some
intervention through Rodney, for whom he wrote that English poem, he was transferred to the
army and he did eventually get away out of the army. The only way he managed to do it was
by putting some kinds of herbs Im not familiar with on his shins, and they made his legs really
sore and terrible, and he was in a very bad way. The doctors couldnt cure it, so he was
dismissed from the army. And it was through blistering his shins, with something called
spearwort, that he managed to get himself out of the army, and he headed for Kerry. And that
brings us to his next poem written in English (Im always surprised when I find him writing in
English) and it is to Father Ned Fitzgerald. He wants him to announce at Mass that Eoghan Rua
is coming back and that hes going to set up a school. Again, Im reading it in English as it was
written in English.

Reverend Sir,
Please to publish from the altar of your holy Mass
That I will open school at Knocknagree Cross,
Where the tender babes will be well off,
For it's there I'll teach them their Criss Cross;
Reverend Sir, you will by experience find,
All my endeavours to please mankind,
For it's there I will teach them how to read and write;
The Catechism I will explain
To each young nymph and noble swain,
With all young ladies I'll engage
To forward them with speed and care,
With book-keeping and mensuration,
Euclid's Elements and Navigation,
With Trigonometry and sound gauging,
And English Grammar with rhyme and reason. *
With the grown up youths I'll first agree,
To instruct them well in the Rule of Three;
Such of them as are well able,
The cube root of me will learn,
Such as are of a tractable genius,
With compass and rule I will teach them,
Bills bonds and informations,
Summons, warrants, supersedes,
Judgement tickets good,
Leases receipts in full,
And releases, short accounts,
With rhyme and reason,

12

And sweet love letters for the ladies.

* We could do with him now, but thats and aside.

So hes back, and he did set up the school. But again, it didnt last very long and, as usual, he
was constantly . . . he was the kind of man, I think, who maybe liked a drink, and liked the
ladies, and got himself into trouble fairly often. Later on, he was writing a poem for a man
called Cronin, again whom he wanted to impress, and wrote a flattering poem, and Cronin
didnt respond to it. And this really angered Eoghan Rua. A short time later he was in a tavern
and some of Cronins men, workers, were there, and so there was a huge row. One of them hit
Eoghan Rua on the head with a tongs, and that was what brought about his final fever, and the
fever which killed him in the end.

But the person who revealed most about Eoghan Rua to us, and who wrote most about him
and gives a very full view of him, was an tAthair Dineen, the man who did the Dnaire . . . he
gave a complete overview of the Irish language, but also of Irish literature.

I said that he wrote nineteen Aisling poems, and weve looked at them, and Ill ask Mairtn to
read his best known one, which is one of great beauty, and that is Ceo Draochta.

[]
Go raibh maith agat.

Again, he describes a beautiful maiden, a beautiful lady coming to him, and his dialogue with
her and so on, and then she says shes sad and mournful and oppressed, and of course she is,
because she is Ireland. And he tells her, this is the closing part of Ceo Draochta, which is a
really beautiful poem, long but well worth taking time on it sometime yourselves, he says,

Regarding Stuart, the foreign king, the Scottish kings, who it was hoped for years, every Aisling
did, would come and save Ireland, in English he is saying,

Wouldnt it be wonderful if the Stuarts returned,
If our Stuart returned oer the ocean to the lands of [] in full course,
With a fleet of Louis men (France) and the Spaniards,
By dint of joy Id truly be on a prancing pure steed of swift metal,
Ever sluicing them out with much shot,
After which Id lock into my spirit,
Standing on guard for the rest of my life.

And again, you see the power and the greatness of that Aisling.

I said he wrote a number of Satires, and it was a Satire which brought about his end, the one
which he wrote about the man called Cronin. Hed written a flattering poem to Cronin, who
didnt respond and appreciate it. As I said previously, that really annoyed him, and so he
wrote him a nasty and an ugly one instead. And then Cronins men then had a row with him in
a tavern, and injured his head, and he was filled then with a terrible fever. He died . . . not
even in a house, he did of course come back to his own area again . . . but he died not in a
house, although he was fairly close to his original home; he died in a fever hut, alone, with
nothing, utterly poor. I think one of the saddest and tragic ends we know, and that was close
to Gneeveguilla, and as you know there is a monument to him there Knocknagree yes
Knocknagree. I remember you took us up there, just outside the church in Knocknagree.
13


So that was Eoghan Rua Suilleabhin, tragic and sad, and one of the great poets of Sliabh
Luachra. But, if you dont mind, I thought I would say something about the time after those
two greats, who were the essence of the great poetry here of Sliabh Luachra, and which hasnt
been bettered since. Just to say that its amazing, the awareness and the presence of Sliabh
Luachra, and Sliabh Luachra poets, in the twentieth century. For those of you who are
interested, you may like to read the Field Day publications on the Sliabh Luachra poets, the
great ones Aoghn and Eoghan Rua, and I think the very fact that they commissioned and
published a whole series on Irish poets, and poetry in general in the Irish language, is
marvellous, but there is a book on Aoghn and a book on Eoghan Rua.

Now there are many ways in which twentieth century accord is paid to them, and I think one
of the great ones, I suppose because I admire him so much, and I think we all do, is that
Seamus Heaney paid tribute to him. As Eoghan Rua travelled around the country, very often
blacksmiths were his friends, and hed stop and talk with them. One man in particular, Samus
MacGearailt, was a favourite of his, and he has a poem which he wrote, asking Samus
MacGearailt to make a spade. When Im doing this, I keep seeing the word in Irish, instead of
in English, and I find myself with the last few days . . . I went into the library in UL the other day
and each time I was going to speak to the girl, Mairtn was with me, I started with an Irish
word, or an Irish phrase, and Im a bit like that now . . . anyway, he had asked this man,
Samus MacGearailt to make him a spade, and Seamus Heaneys poem, in District and Circle,
youre probably familiar with it, Poet to Blacksmith, is a direct translation of that poem by
Eoghan Rua. You probably know, as well, about Seamus Heaney that there was a blacksmith,
and blacksmiths, that he loved calling in to also. And he says, and it is translating the poem in
Irish,

Samus, make me a side-arm to take on the earth,
A suitable tool for digging and grubbing the ground,
Lightsome and pleasant to lean on, or cut with or lift,
Tastily finished and trim, and right for the hand,
No trace of the hammer to show on the sheen of the blade,
The thing to have purchase and spring and be fit for the strain,
The shaft to be socketed in, dead true and dead straight,
And Ill work with the gang till I drop and never complain.
The plate and the edge of it not to be crinkly or crooked,
I see it well-shaped from the anvil and sharp from the file,
The grain of the wood and the line of the shaft nicely fitted,
And best thing of all, the ring of it, sweet as a bell.

And that was Seamus Heaneys translation and tribute, and indeed I think many of the modern
poets did admire Eoghan Rua and Aoghn. When compiling the Faber Book of Irish Verse, John
Montague included translations of poems by both Aoghn and Eoghan Rua.

A quick run through of some other influences of their poetry, especially Eoghan Rua, seen in
twentieth century literature: Yeats used aspects of Silleabhins reputation in his Stories of
Red Hanrahan, you know Red Hanrahans song about Ireland and the series on Red Hanrahan,
whose given name is Eoghan, thats Red Hanrahan, who carries a copy of Virgil in his pocket:
the hedge-school master, tall, strong, red-haired young man. And as we know, Eoghan Rua
was a hedge-school master, tall and strong and red-haired.

Synge mentions Eoghan Rua in The Playboy of the Western World: Pegeen Mike compares
Christy, the Playboy, to him. She says, If you werent destroyed travelling youd have as much
talk, Im thinking, as Eoghan Rua Silleabhin, or the poets of the Dingle Bay, and Ive heard
14

all times its the poets are your like, fine fiery fellows, with great rages when their tempers
roused. Synge had spent a lot of time in west Kerry, and spoke Irish, and spent a lot of time
on the Aran Islands, and so on, as well.

And Daniel Corkery, whose book Im sure you know, The Hidden Ireland, it was one of my great
loves when I was studying literature, because that book was written in English, even though
the style is old-fashioned and archaic in a way, it still has helped him to be known. I was
amazed to find out, until I was reading stuff for tonight, that Sean Rada had written a play
based on the life of Eoghan Rua, and then I thought, Spailpn a Run, I remember that being
sung somewhere OK. The song of the same name is part of the lament, in the music of the film
of the Titanic, you know the Titanic film? And part of Riadas song, inspired by the life of
Eoghan Rua, Spailpn a Run, is actually a part of that. I suppose thats fitting too, since there
were so many Irish lost in it.

As Ive said, Daniel Corkery compared him to Dante, and Frank OConnor, the great short story
writer and author, he compared him to Robert Burns, and said he was a poet of the people, in
the way that Robert Burns was in Scotland.

In An Duanaire, of which Im sure youre familiar, published by Thomas Kinsella, in association
with another writer, they included Aoghn Rathaille, and Thomas Kinsella himself translated
two of his poems, and he also translated and included in the Duanaire, which was published Id
say in the 80s probably, sometime around then, it was when Thomas Kinsella was still living
and working in Dublin, and the one he translated about Aoghn is the one which we read,
which I talked about, Is Fada Liom Oche Fhrfhliuch, about the long night of the terrible wave,
and he is also writing about Aoghn Rathaille again in his poem, Homesick in Old Age. So the
poem, The Drenching Night Drags On, the two of those, were included in the Duanaire. It was
one of the great events, I think, in bringing Irish language literature to more people, because
he translated all kinds of work which mightnt have been found too easily otherwise.

I think its amazing how the tradition of poetry and writing is still so alive in Sliabh Luachra, and
continued. And thats the next way my thoughts went, and I thought about Bernard
ODonoghue, the poet, born in the Sliabh Luachra area, whose father died very suddenly,
tragically, when he was sixteen, and his mother, who was English, then took the family back to
her native Manchester. But Bernard ODonoghue, who became a brilliant academic, and
worked for long years in Oxford, and who has written, was constantly coming back to Sliabh
Luachra to find his roots, and has written a great deal about that. And probably people will
know his book called Farmers Cross, his last collection I think, and that is very much concerned
with being an migr writer, although he always said he didnt want to be called just an migr
writer. But he had a great love of the land, a great love of the area. One of the poems in
Farmers Cross is a poem on emigration:
Unhappy the man that keeps to the home place
and never finds time to escape to the city
where he can listen to the rain on the ceiling,
secure in the knowledge that its causing no damage
to roof-thatch or haystack or anything of his.
Unhappy the man that never got up
on a tragic May morning, to go to the station
dressed out for America, where he might have stood
by the Statue of Liberty, or drunk in the light
that floods all the streets that converge on Times Square.

15

Unhappy the man that has lacked the occasion

to return to the village on a sun-struck May morning,
to shake the hands of the neighbours hed left
a lifetime ago and tell the worlds wonders,

before settling down by his hearth once again.

And he also has a lovely poem from an earlier collection, about visiting the birthplace of
Aoghn Rathaille. He says:
We got directions from a man in socks
asleep in front of Coronation Street
who followed us to the door with a kind
of generous wistfulness, and then worked our way
up along the mountain road past Lisheen Cross
to reach the place itself, easily known
by its limestone monument.

And he describes how happy they were to be there, and looking back and thinking about
Aoghn Rathaille.
Bernard ODonoghue, I believe, is carrying on the great tradition of Sliabh Luachra, being a
great writer and so successful himself. And I suppose Gunpowder is the poem most of us
would have known for a longer time, and thats the one which he wrote about the death of his
father, who had been shooting (he wasnt shot or anything like that) shortly before he died,
and before the accident. What he found the saddest of all, and I suppose we all have known
something of this in different ways, was the smell of his fathers coat, there was a smell of
gunpowder from it. It really was one of the saddest moments, and he talks about it in the
poem:
In the weeks afterwards, his jacket hung
Behind the door in the room we called
His study, where the bikes and wellingtons
Were kept. No-one went near it, until
Late one evening I thought I'd throw it out.
The sleeves smelled of gunpowder, evoking...
Celebration excitement things like that,
Not destruction. What was it he shot at
And missed that time? A cock pheasant
That he hesitated too long over
In case it was a hen? The rat behind
The piggery that, startled by the bang,
Turned round to look before going home to its hole?
Once a neighbour who had winged a crow
Tied it to a pike thrust in the ground
To keep the others off the corn. It worked well,
Flapping and cawing, till my father
Cut it loose. Even more puzzlingly,
He once took a wounded rabbit off the dog
And pushed it back into the warren
Which undermined the wall. As for
Used cartridges, they stood well on desks,
Upright on their graven golden ends,

16

Supporting his fountain-pen so that

The ink wouldn't seep into his pocket.

I think thats the continuing tradition of Sliabh Luachra. And finally, Im sure some of you
probably know this book, a book called Pulse, written by Tommy Frank OConnor who lives in
Tralee, but was a native of Scartaglen, and as you know Scartaglen is one of the areas which is
part of Sliabh Luachra. He writes both in prose and in poetry, and also has written drama.
Some of you may have seen it at Siamsa Tre in Tralee. And I thought Id quickly read one of
his, and he says:

The kings and chieftains of Chiarra Luachra
Are testament to the line of [],
A people honed in unyielding battle,
Historys witness will persevere.

Refrain:
Let us muster as a ring fort
To guard and cherish our heritage
In words and deeds our heritage lives
And thrives on the way to tomorrow.
In words and deeds our heritage lies
And thrives on the way to tomorrow.

No sword can ravage resourceful spirit,
Or traitor hope for our final grave,
Today no boundary sets a limit,
Our future reborn in every age.

Refrain:

The shell and cannon that breach castle
Rust in time various deeds,
Our Chiarra Kingdom has rock foundation,
Braverys spirit flourishes here.

Refrain:

From Shannon waves to the Kenmare river,
Blasket Sound back to Scartaglen,
On Skellig Michael and Tarbert Island,
Legendary news, again and again.

Refrain:

May God look kindly on generations
Past and present and yet unborn,
Give fortitude, so well join together,
Always willing to share and learn

Refrain:

Let us muster as a ring fort
Regard and cherish our []
In words and deeds our heritage lives
And thrives on the way to tomorrow.
In words and deeds our heritage lives

17

And thrives on the way to tomorrow.

Now Ive said that as well as being a poet, I think that evokes all of the great sense of
patriotism of Sliabh Luachra, which obviously hes very much a part of, Tommy Frank, since he
has written this book. In one of his Essays in the book, he says, Great literature has a way of
making the village universal. He was referring to one of the stories of Chekhov, and really the
point he is making, I suppose, is that place is so important, something which is very obvious in
the work of Bernard ODonoghue as well. And he says, so what is so inspiring about Sliabh
Luachra? How would Chekhov have regarded it? And he talks a little about the history of
Sliabh Luachra, and about the difficult times, the penal laws, conquest and so on. He talks
about the hedge-schools, Dtha Bruadair the poet, and one of the greatest of these was
Dtha Bruadair, a great file and teacher, highly regarded still by many poets, including the
late Michael Hartnett of Newcastle West. And then he comes to a part which I think is a good
note on which, almost, to end: The poets and writers responded in a language and idiom that
could not be interpreted by the heathen invaders, which was very much, as I said, in the work
and mind and soul and heart of Aoghn. It gives the poor Kerry masters, Piaras Ferritir,
Corca Dhuibhne, [] Geoffrey? ODonoghue of the Glens, who carried on Ferritirs work after
he was hanged, outside Killarney as you probably know, in 1653. Then Gneeveguilla gave us
the great Aoghn Rathaille (1675-1728), followed by the abundantly talented rascal Eoghan
Rua Silleabhin (1748-84), whom Tommy Frank OConnor regards as the Dylan Thomas of
his time. So, I think people constantly make marvellous comparisons between Aoghn,
Eoghan Rua and the great writers like Pindar, Dante, and the Dylan Thomas of our time.

A century later, that hinterland thats called Corca Dhuibhne, gave us the poet Ned Buckley,
and that most eminent lexicographer Father Stephen Dinneen, An t-Athair Dinneen, is how
we mostly know him, author and co-author of many works but most famous for his Irish-
English Dictionary.

The legacy of Aoghn and Eoghan Rua has increased and multiplied into the present, not just
in the like attention to nuance and detail, in the story-telling of the late Eamonn Kelly, who is
known to us as well, in Bernard ODonoghue, one of the most accomplished poets in any land
(he actually was winner of the Whitbread Prize in 1995, I forgot to mention that about Bernard
ODonoghue), one of the most accomplished poets in any land, of poets writing in Irish such as
Donal Siodhachin, Marion Moynihan, whom we know from Corca Dhuibhne, Karen
OConnor and Eileen Sheehan, and theyre all poets known to us. And I thought it was rather
lovely that I was summing up with something which mentioned Donal. And he says, Their
poetry is enjoyed all over the land, and poet/translator Eugene OConnell, who already has a
well-deserved national and international profile, but also by the songwriters, musicians, story
tellers, historians and dancers, who cherish and enhance their heritage. They have emerged
from the wide womb of Sliabh Luachra, and endowed it with a mystical and a mythical ethos in
Irish and world folklore. And Chekhov would surely be impressed.

And finally, I think we are all very conscious of Donal and that hes in all our thoughts this
evening, and I think its very fortuitous that we have somebody with us, with a very nice poem
for Donal, that Mairtn has translated into Irish, and I thought that Donal, who was one of the
people who had such a pride and passion in the culture and the literature, the music, the
spirit, just the brilliance of Sliabh Luachra, and it never failed him, and I suppose I always
remember the first time I heard him read, and I said to whoever was beside me, it wasnt
Mairtn because he was at choir practice that same night, but I remember saying, Isnt he just
a Bardic poet come back? You know that incantatory voice, and the way he called out the
poem in Irish, or the poem in English . . . so I think that he who loved Sliabh Luachra, who was
18

born here, inspired by it, upheld it, worked for it, promoted it, enhanced it and always paid a
great tribute to the culture and heritage of Sliabh Luachra, should be the note on which we
end. And we are very lucky that the poet who wrote this poem in memory of Donal is here
with us, all the way from Essex, outside London. Tim Cunningham, is here this evening, so Tim
maybe you could say the original in English and Mairtn will say it in Irish.



As Lthair (i.m. Donal)

Absence is dawn without light
Night without darkness

Lightening without its flash
Thunder without its roll

A meadow without flowers
A desert without sand

A river without fish
A sky without birds

Children without laughter
A dog without its bark

Language without words
A blackbird without a song

A sea without waves
A forest without trees

Paint without colour
A rose without smell

A tiger without stripes
The circus without a clown

Christmas without carols
April without showers

Love without touch
A church without prayer

A harp without strings
His favourite chair, empty

I just want to say that I think thats a lovely way to pay a final tribute to Sliabh Luachra, that he
loved so much.

19