Lacking any musical talent, I started writing about Irish music and arts more than 20 years ago. My writing has appeared in Irish Music Magazine, the Irish Herald in San Francisco, History Ireland, and several artists' websites. More recently, I have been writing about the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin is an Oscar-nominated documentarywith a compelling portrait of resistance to autocracy and fascism. I had the privilege of seeing a special screening of this film at the Smith Rafael Film Center with the director, producer, and Mr. Nobody in attendance for a Q&A. Mr. Nobody is Pavel Talankin, Pasha, a primary school teacher in a small Russian town, who decides to use his skills to fight back against Vladimir Putin’s school-based propaganda campaign justifying his war in Ukraine. It begins with his annoyance at how Moscow’s demands are making his work and that of other teachers more burdensome, then quickly pivots into filming an undercover documentary in his role as the school videographer.
The propaganda campaign becomes more and more intrusive until students are marching in military-style uniforms and getting weapons presentations from Wagner Group mercenaries. Pasha is increasingly frustrated and outraged, and his opposition to the propaganda becomes more evident. He clearly sees the effects of mobilization and conscription on the young people in his town. Young men with few good job options join the army and serve in Ukraine. Some do not return.
It would make an excellent double-feature with the film Porcelain War, which I wrote about in 2025. This film is available for streaming in the PBS POV series. Both films offer a close-up view of how ordinary people exercise their agency and courage to resist oppression. And both films focus more on acts of grace, love, and humanity than on war. That’s what makes the films so dramatically powerful.
The film is now showing at the Smith Rafael Film Center and other independent film theaters in the Bay Area. It is also available for streaming on Apple TV. Putin, like Trump, is a big believer in HIS freedom of expression. This film shows how ruthlessly he peddles his big lies to school children and teachers. Trump has not extended his propaganda in this sector, but you can be sure he admires the roadmap.
The war in Ukraine is still with us, a seemingly endless, everyday tragedy. I described the documentary, Porcelain War,as a terrible beauty of a film when I reviewed it earlier this year. Christy Moore’s album of the same name features a track called Sunflowers, another commentary on the war. Initially, the film had a limited theatrical release but no streaming deal. Now, it has been acquired by the Public Broadcasting Service’s POV series, and is available to watch on the PBS Player and on KQED in the San Francisco Bay Area. The film remains hugely relevant as the U.S. and Russia seem bent on forcing a one-sided resolution on Ukraine where the autocratic aggressor gets all its demands met, and the democratic state gets shafted.
Tabharthas was one of the lovely, loamy Irish words I learned from Manchán Magan’s brilliant book, Thirty Two Words for Field. The word has several meanings, including gift, tribute, and bequest. Magan died this week, leaving a gap in the energy field of Irish land-rooted, indigenous spirituality. His loss will echo across the world. His life was a full-blooded tribute to his Irish heritage, lineage, land, and culture.
By coincidence (or perhaps not), I was listening to the new recording from Cormac Begley and Liam O’Connor, titled “Into The Loam.” The phrase ‘drawing from the well’ often comes up in discussions of traditional music, but Begley and O’Connor seem to have found one of those mythical places to play and film some of their new music.
This selection is called Bogadh Faoi Shusa. It struck me that it would make a good lament for Magan’s passing, especially the second part where the melody winds down. He would have appreciated the location, a cave of sorts, half underground and half overground, with nearby running water. He was on the verge of much wider recognition for his culture-changing work. If you have not read, seen, or heard him, seek out his work. A number of his films were made for TG4, Ireland’s Irish-speaking TV channel, and may be found on the TG4 Player.
On a visit to Ireland earlier this year, I visited my old childhood summer home-away-from-home in Oughterard, Co. Galway. On an evening walk down the Pier Road, I came upon this sign. This was one of the inspirations for the title of this blog, although I had utterly forgotten the connection. This old road sign points towards Lemonfield, where I had a formative experience listening to two local fiddle players, Matt and Pete Conneely, with my friend John Clancy. You can find that story here, in one of the most widely read posts, “The Power of the Pattern”(in 2 parts), from 2010.
Many of the older posts from my original blog have not been referenced or reprised in the WordPress version, which I started in 2020. It’s about time I cross-posted some of those earlier pieces. All of my recent posts have been published on both sites. I maintain the original Blogger site because I want to keep track of my “readership,” which has now exceeded 120,000. Not bad for a part-time, unpromoted publishing effort focused on Irish music and arts, dating back to 2008, when blogs, depending on your perspective, were either still a big thing or already passé.
One goal was to create a space for informed and insightful writing about Irish culture and arts with a focus on traditional music from an immigrant perspective. The music served as a primary cultural lifeline back to Ireland after I emigrated to the United States in the 1980s. I wanted to share my passion and inspire others to acquire an interest in the country’s music and arts.
Initially, I wanted to have more than my voice on the site. I had hoped to persuade musicians to write about music-making, insights into the creative process, or aspects of performance or stage-craft. That dream remained unrealized. Musicians, I came to understand, place more value on playing and performing over sitting down to write, and who can blame them? However, my posts contain links to other writers, many of whom are more polished than I, providing additional resources to contextualize my commentary and address the Node mandate in the title.
Writing about music is an odd preoccupation. Listening is always required to get into music, but sometimes the right words can change perceptions of new or old music. I’ve benefited from that exchange more than a few times myself, and I aspire to offer the same opportunity to my readers.
I was fortunate to have a bi-cultural, urban and rural upbringing in Ireland before the effects of television, telephones, and technology began to erode our traditional culture. Radio was the dominant technology, and thanks to Ciarán Mac Mathúna, Séamus Ennis, Seán Ó Riada, and others, I heard some of the best traditional players and singers on RTE Radio. I reveled in the trad and folk revival of the 1960s, tuning in to the Clancy Brothers, the Johnstons, the Dubliners, and the Chieftains. Then, my tastes were further expanded (maybe even exploded) by Planxty, featuring Donal Lunny, Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, and the late Liam O’Flynn—the Holy Trinity Plus One of Irish music.
In California, my writing practice was revived by the encouragement and persistence of Catherine Barry and Elgy Gillespie, who were editing the Irish Herald, a monthly newspaperin San Francisco, until the early 2000s. I had three very prolific years with the Herald, covering CD and concert reviews, as well as interviews with visiting musicians. For example, I was fortunate to talk with Maria and Simon O’Dwyer of Coirn na hÉireann (Horns of Ancient Ireland) on their first trip to San Francisco. Their revival work on early Irish instruments was featured in John Creedon’s excellent 2024 documentary, Creedon’s Musical Atlas of Ireland. I saw and wrote about Tony Mac Mahon playing two extraordinary concerts with the Kronos Quartet in 2002 and 2003.
I wrote regularly for Irish Music Magazine for over ten years, conducting interviews with musicians and writing reviews of performances and recordings. Some of these have been reproduced or referenced on the blog, but I plan to “digitize” a few more in a selective fashion. And, as if that was not enough, when I resumed my sidebar writing activities, it intersected with the stratospheric trajectory of Martin Hayes’ career. I was fortunate to see him play live in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Sebastopol many times. My first piece on Hayes in the Irish Herald in September 2000 was titled Zen and the Art of Fiddle Playing. I heard him play at the San Francisco Celtic Music Festival each spring for ten years from 1991.
I have written about Hayes several times, and it has always been a rewarding experience. The first blog essay, titled “Hayes and Cahill: Recalibrating the Tradition,” was published in October 2008. I include it here since the post went up before the counter was initiated, and many readers may never have had the opportunity to read it. It is one of my favorites with extended quotes from an interview with the two masters conducted at the legendary Freight (formerly known as The Freight and Salvage) in Berkeley.
Hayes and Cahill graced the stage and enthralled audiences many times at the Freight, sometimes in their pluperfect partnership, other times with larger musical groupings. There was a riveting evening with The Gloaming in 2014. Another unforgettable performance I titled Quadruple Delights in 2018, showcased the Blue Room CD and Hayes’ quartet.
A good part of my continuing education in traditional music came from some of the well-known figures I have mentioned and a slew of lesser-known musicians who schooled me in the music. In fact, it is the countless hosts of musicians who play and perform for little or no reward that keep the music alive. Irish roots music is in fine shape, and each new generation of players seems to be more talented and innovative than their forebears.
These time-machine reposts will be continued in the future with other widely read posts on Susan McKeown, Paddy O’Brien, John Doyle, the Black Brothers, the late Mick Fitzgerald, Brendan Begley, Christy Moore, and others.
Dublin can be heaven if you are seeking cultural stimulation, and the Hodges Figgis’ bookshop is a good place to look. In June, I was fortunate to be there for the book launch of Camarade by my friend, Theo Dorgan. The audience was studded with poets, writers, scholars, musicians, and sundry cognoscenti: I was perhaps the most anonymous attendee. I sat next to a distinguished-looking gentleman with a lilting Northern accent. We chatted amiably, but initially I did not catch his name.
Imagine my astonishment, then, when I realized I was talking with Fintan Vallely, Ireland’s preeminent expert on Irish traditional music and a highly accomplished flute player. He has been writing, speaking, teaching, and advocating for traditional music for over fifty years. I have a decent collection of his writing, suitably curated in the title photograph. I have relied upon his books and articles as sources of sound information (especially the series of Companion Guides), stimulation, and writing inspiration.
His newest book, Beating Time: The Story of the Irish Bodhrán, explores the history of Ireland’s favored percussion instrument. The frame drum is not nearly as old as many people think. Vallely dates its high-profile arrival in Irish music to 1959, when it featured in the music for Sive, John B. Keane’s play, at the Abbey Theater. Sean O’Riada was the Abbey’s music director, and he was drawn to the drum’s possibilities. He made room for a bodhran player, Peadar Mercier, when he created a new ensemble, “ceili” band, Ceoltóirí Chualann (“The Band that Changed the Course of Irish Music”) in 1961.
The new book features vivid portraits by Jacques Piraprez Nutan and James Fraher and an extraordinary array of archival material, photos, and illustrations. Vallely establishes the tambourine as the origin of the drum. There is little evidence that it was present or necessary historically in the deeply melodic traditions of Irish music, Vallely asserts. However, improvised drums were fashioned from frames used for winnowing and sifting, particularly by Wrenboys on St. Stephen’s Day.
His book is suffused with organic intelligence. There are no artificial ingredients. Every chapter is rigorously researched, carefully arranged and annotated, and beautifully presented. The writing smoothly weaves dazzling details into the larger narrative. He is a Master collaborator. Each edition of the Companion guides involves contributions from dozens of musicians and music scholars. He is generous in his credits and acknowledgements and wears his erudition lightly.
Nicholas Carolan, former Director of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, introduced Vallely’s book at the Willie Clancy Summer School this July. He said Vallely had tirelessly researched the bodhran for many years and drew from a great range of recently digitized information. “He’s produced here both a definitive history of the Irish drum, and also an exemplar, a template for writing the social and musical history of other instruments of Irish traditional music.” On that last point, the concertina would be an excellent topic.
My favorite among Vallely’s works is Blooming Meadows, The World of Irish Traditional Musicians, a book of 30 interviews and portraits of Irish musicians published in 1998. Co-written with Charlie Piggott and featuring Nutan’s photographs and a “borrowed’ bar stool, the book is a treasure of lore and legends. The timely book offered a wealth of stories on long-established musicians, including Joe Burke, Ann Conroy, Paddy Canny, Joe Cooley, Lucy Farr, and Ben Lennon. It features many others who were on the cusp of greater recognition: Martin Hayes, Sharon Shannon, Liz Carroll, and Brendan Begley, among others. The format of short essays paired with a good image was one inspiration for my blog when I started it in 2008.
His other works in my collection are Tuned Out, a comprehensive and authoritative (like all Vallely’s writing) exploration drawn from interviews with musicians of how Irish traditional music fell out of favor with many Northern Protestants, regrettable collateral damage in the political polarization wrought by The Troubles. Sing Up is a humorous, clever collection of Irish comic and satirical songs. It’s got a whole section called Goatery and Percussion with songs about the bodhran.
Arguing at the Crossroads goes back to 1997 with ten essays on a changing Ireland. Vallely’s essay surveyed the state of Irish music at that point (post-Riverdance) and found it in rude health. The Local Accent, Selected Proceedings from BLAS also dates from 1997, and includes his provocative essay, The Migrant, the Tourist, the Voyeur, the Leprechaun. Vallely edited Crosbhealach An Cheoil (The Crossroads Conference, 1996) with Hammy Hamilton, Eithne Vallely & Liz Doherty.
Vallely is a walking/talking encyclopedia of Irish traditional music. In our brief conversation at the book launch, he summarized the key points of his bodhran research, mentioned his studies of The Princess Grace Song-Sheet Collection in Monaco (an astounding piece of catalogue work), and described the evolution of the Third Companion Guide into recordings on CD and DVD. He also gave me a copy of his 2021 CD, Merrijig Creek, an enchanting album of his compositions and arrangements with a powerhouse set of musical partners: his sister, Sheena, on flute, Caoimhin Vallely, their cousin, on piano, Liz Doherty and Gerry O’Connor on fiddles, Daithi Sproule on guitar, and Brian Morrissey on, you guessed it, the bodhran.
Vallely is an ubiquitous presence in the Irish music literature. I like to think of him as a key “influencer” before it was a popular or profitable role. Beating Time has everything you would want to know about the bodhran (including brass tacks) and much more that you may find intriguing and enlightening.
Links and additional sources:
All of Vallely’s prodigious work, books, recordings, articles, and other musical projects can be found at his website imusic.ie:
Irish arts suffered a tremendous loss this month with the untimely death of Sean Rocks, the voice of arts coverage on Irish radio for 20 years. Here are two short clips from his RTE programme, Arena:
First, an interview with Fintan Vallely about Beating Time.
Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha lit up The Freight and Salvage in Berkeley with three sold-out shows last weekend, April 4, 5, and 6. The group’s performances are an audio-visual extravaganza. Their music cuts across a broad spectrum of folk/trad/rock/jazz/techno: ethno/techno, in their words. Think of them as musical anthropologists. They play with passionate intensity and muscular musicality—rigorous and vigorous. The quartet comprises Marko Halanevych, Iryna Kovalenko, Olena Tsybulska, and Nina Garenetsk.
Every instrument has a percussive role, supplementing the array of drums (Indian, African, and Arabic) on stage. Everyone sings, and the women’s voices meld into soulful, sharply cadenced choruses. The cello brings dark energy to sonic arrangements. The accordion sound is minimal in many songs and often resembles uilleann pipes, organs, or harmonica.
Some of their music was featured as the soundtrack for Porcelain War, a terrible beauty of a documentary, that played earlier this year at the Smith Rafael Film Center. A streaming service has not taken up the powerful anti-war film, but some clips can be seen here: https://www.porcelainwar.com/videos
DakhaBrakha was created in 2004 at the Kyiv Center of Contemporary Art “DAKH” by avant-garde theatre director Vladyslav Troitskyi. Theatre work has left its mark on the band’s performances—their shows are always staged with a strong visual element of projected imagery and animations.
Their U.S. tour ends this month and they have one more Northern California gig in Davis before returning to Ukraine for a series of summer concerts. They are a uniquely powerful ensemble expanding Ukrainian folk and traditional music into a wild world of sonic adventures. And, in the You-know-you’re-in-Berkeley-When category, a Ukrainian immigrant, Igor Tregub, who serves on the Berkeley City Council, introduced the group.
Porcelain War Filmmaker Slava Leontyev and producer Paula Dupre Pesmen were interviewed by the Ukrainian Deputy Consul General Yevgeniy Drobot at the Smith Rafael Film Center on February 4, 2025. (Photo by Dave Mackie)
Porcelain War is a terrible beauty of a documentary, an improbable and almost impossible achievement by a group of Ukrainian artists. Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko, and Andrey Stefanov stayed in the war zone around Kharkiv, armed only with their art, cameras, and, for the first time ever, guns. Ordinary extraordinary civilians electing to fight for their lives, culture, freedom, and democracy in a war waged against professional soldiers.
The filmmakers decided not to make a film that presents a balanced narrative of the horrors and successes of war. They wanted to show as much beauty, bravery, grace and decency as possible. There is no fog of war for the Ukrainian resistance. They fight in the most moral way, lamenting the brutal power of the weapons they use while showing compassion and empathy for Russian soldiers being sacrificed for Putin’s delusion of a restored Russian empire.
When I first saw it, I had the revelation that Ukraine’s war is the frontline of the worldwide struggle to save democracy. Many people already understood this, but the film hammered it home for me. That was before President Trump’s inauguration. Now, I see that the frontline has shifted to the United States and that Ukraine may become collateral damage in the worldwide anti-democratic surge.
Both films have useful lessons on resistance. Firstly, everyone who sees the authoritarian dangers must resist in their own way. In Ukraine, two porcelain artists and a painter became movie-makers. Other professionals, teachers, farmers, engineers, human resources specialists, and tech-savvy young people joined the army and put their skills to patriotic use.
In Hungary, three women- a journalist, a politician, and a nurse- led resistance work to counter Viktor Orbán’s corrupt, persistent, and largely successful campaign to undermine democracy. As many commentators have noted, Orban’s playbook is the model for Project 2025 and the barrage of executive orders Trump has signed in the first two weeks of his “reign.” Orbán took carefully crafted, methodical steps to chip away at Hungarian democratic institutions (the media, universities, arts organizations, and Non-Government Organizations) while maintaining popularity with a majority of citizens. His authoritarian project is over fifteen years strong.
I have already seen Porcelain War twice this year, thanks to the generous and activist programming of the California Film Institute and the Smith Rafael Film Center. The film is on a limited theatrical release and has not secured a streaming arrangement so far. It has been Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary Feature. Don’t miss it if it is showing near you.
The soundtrack features the sweet and startlingly tart music of the Ukrainian band DhakaBrahka. The band is touring the United States in March and April and will play some concerts at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeleyat the end of March. Described as being,
“At the crossroads of Ukrainian folklore and theater, their musical spectrum ranges from intimate to riotous, plumbing the depths of contemporary roots and rhythms.”
The film’s focus on people trying to live their best lives in a time of unrelenting war is inspiring and motivational. The scenes of beauty in nature and people are captivating. When the filmmakers were asked how people could help the cause, not once did they ask for money. Their goal was to raise awareness of how people are dealing with the tragedy in their country and raising money would be a crass and useless gesture. The film stands on its own merits.
The struggle for democracy is going on now in the United States and other countries. Very wealthy people are no longer rooting for democracy or for the common good. Towards the end of the film, Anya Stasenko says that she is lucky to have met so many brave people in the resistance and is amazed at how much good work they have accomplished together. Do we need to have wars to see this truth?
It would be easy to lose hope. Perhaps hope has finally risen to the level of strategy, to rework that Obama-era cliché? The lesson from these films is to do whatever you can; every little gesture of resistance is important. Support local arts organizations, especially for music, movies, theater, and visual arts. Stay informed by supporting independent and local media outlets while we still have some. Find community groups doing work for the common good and volunteer to help. Contact your elected representatives at the local and state levels to express your dissatisfaction with the outrageous power grabs underway. Take to the streets, like some Democrat leaders are finally doing. Speak out on behalf of the most vulnerable, demonized people and groups. Try to be as courageous, honorable and resourceful as Ukrainians.
This post is a repeat from June, 2023, which mysteriously disappeared. Better late than never…
Today marks the end of our first week in Auckland and we have explored the city and attended two fine footballing contests. New Zealand thoroughly deserved their victory in the opening game. They pressed Norway with passion and consistency from the get-go. Their self-belief grew as the game went on. And their efforts paid off early in the second half with a power play down the right side of the Norwegian defense that produced a smash and grab goal. The home fans were solidly supportive, urging the team on. Later in the second half the home team could have put the icing on it with a penalty kick but it smashed off the cross bar. It was the first ever win for a New Zealand team in the World Cup and the country has rightly gone a bit nuts.
The game between Vietnam and the United States was a rare instance where both teams implemented their game plans perfectly. The U.S. dominated possession and were aerially and physically superior. But Vietnam executed their damage limitation plan brilliantly and consistently. They defended doggedly and vigorously (too vigorously according to some U.S. fans) and were still running and working hard right to the end. Their goalkeeper saved a penalty from Alex Morgan and bravely recovered some of her misplays. The gaps between top teams and others may be more narrow in this competition.
Sophia Smith earned the MVP award for her two goals. The first was a team beauty. Horan’s searching pass from midfield was tenderly touched by Morgan into the channel where Smith was charging in to score. Her second goal had to survive a VAR review. In my opinion, Lindsay Horan was equally worthy of the award. She was utterly imposing in midfield, inspiring, controlling and harassing her opponents. She had a few chances that she fluffed but finally got her reward in the second half with the third goal, decisively struck. Julie Ertz returned to the team with a powerhouse display alongside Naomi Girma. All the U.S. vital bench players got a workout. Midfield creativity and improvisation went up a couple of notches when Rose Lavelle entered. Megan Rapinoe appeared and while her touch was uncharacteristically sluggish she put precise corners and free kicks into the danger zone.
Management of the games and the fans have been exemplary. Entries and exits from Eden Park have been smooth. Every ticket includes free public transportation to and from the games. Even the weather has cooperated. The rain forecast for the opening game held off until after the match.
Auckland, a cornucopia of diversity
Auckland is not a homogenous city. There is a wide range of people, cultures and food. We see significant numbers of people who appear to be Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Pacific Islander and, of course, Māori. The indigenous people make up 15% of the nation’s population, according to our airport shuttle driver. He was of the opinion that they got a lot of deference from government policies and programs for “past wrongs.” Not an unfamiliar viewpoint for those of us who live in the U.S.
We have found people to be friendly, courteous and helpful, especially bus drivers, and staff in shops and cafes. Perhaps, old-fashioned is the right descriptor. There are tourists and visitors, like ourselves, but many are immigrants as far as we can tell. The country is sports-mad with fields, pitches, clubhouses and facilities everywhere. Rugby is the the dominant sport but by all accounts soccer is catching up fast.
Juliet thinks the wide street, Ponsonby Road, near where we are staying has a 1970s Belfast vibe, without the Troubles and with better coffee. She is intrigued by the fashions, also reminiscent of the 70s, lots of green and brown stripes. There is a wide selection of tattoo parlors and one tattoo removal service for those with later regrets. We also have a choice of psychologists, therapists, massage therapists and chiropractors. All in white, colonial-style houses with verandas. Even waiting for a bus is an occasion for style. Photo
Later this week, we head to Wellington to see two group decider games: the U.S. and the Netherlands and Spain vs. Japan. Japan scored the biggest victory so far putting five goals past the hapless Zambia. The Dutch women will match up to the U.S. in skill and physique and will be keen to make up for their loss in the 2019 final.
The news of Michael Longley’s death today prompted me to search through the blog archives for my review of books by Longley and Ciaran Carson. Carson died in 2019, and Longley has now departed. Many tributes will be paid to Longley over the next few days and weeks. The Irish President, Michael D. Higgins, led the way in today’s Irish Times:
Michael worked to give space and actuality to the moral imperative that we must live together with forbearance, with understanding, with compassion and insight, and above all else, perhaps, with hope.
One of the first pieces I wrote for The Irish Herald in San Francisco in May 2000, at the instigation of Elgy Gillespie and Catherine Barry, was a review of two books of their poetry. This edited version appeared in the blog in August 2010, and I reproduce it here as a small tribute to Longley’s work and genius.
The Honest Ulstermen
A review of The Twelfth of Never by Ciaran Carson; Wake Forest University Press, 1998, and The Weather in Japan by Michael Longley, Cape Poetry, Jonathan Cape, 2000.
I first came to Carson’s poetry through his prose. Last Night’s Fun (North Point Press, 1996) is a masterly piece of work, arguably the finest book ever written about the mysteries of the music-making process. His new book of poetry, The Twelfth of Never, continues in that vein. He uses tune titles –notoriously misleading in the Irish tradition- for many poems. He poetically plagiarizes many old ballads, twisting and turning familiar lines into a darker tapestry such as this from The Rising of the Moon:
The pale moon was rising above the green mountain, The red sun declining beneath the blue sea, When I saw her again by yon clear crystal fountain, Where poppies, not potatoes, grew in contraband.
Carson writes like a man possessed. The Twelfth of Never reads like it was written in one passionate, pellucid night when the words flowed freely, and his magpie mind couldn’t be stopped. And, as if living in the North was not strange enough, Carson’s forays into Japanese culture bring him to locations where he finds, The labyrinth to which I hadn’t got the key.
Poetry is, at its best, an intellectual and emotional con game. The poet hopes to trick us into thinking anew about things or rethinking familiar things by sleight-of-word. Carson riffs, raps, trips, traps, rocks, and rolls our perceptions in his poetry. In The Display Case, Carson seems to express some regret that his oeuvre is nearly all in English, not his native Irish language. But this is English writing that could only emerge from an Irish consciousness, Where everything is metaphor and simile (Tib’s Eve).
Carson’s poems are odes to complexity, a dissection of that hairball of historic proportions, that nest of co-dependent hostilities that is Northern Ireland. And discussion of Northern Irish poetry is no less fraught with difficulty, a minefield sown with words.
Both Carson and Longley are distinctly Northern Irish. Longley describes being there as living in three places at once: one partly Irish, one partly English and one that’s “…also its own awkward self.” Each covers the touchstones of Northern identity and the struggle of people to lead normal lives in the mayhem, including their efforts to play an artist’s role in a society given more to ideology than to introspection.
Both are famous as the artists that stayed home, laboring in the bloody northern field. They served long stints with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland before retiring in recent years to focus on their writing. As John Hume has noted (Arguing at the Crossroads, 1998), Northern artists were mainly responsible for keeping the flame of diversity and multi-culturalism alive during the years of strife and political polarization.
In All of These People, Longley ruminates:
Who was it who suggested that the opposite of war Is not so much peace as civilisation? He knew Our assassinated Catholic greengrocer who died At Christmas in the arms of our Methodist minister.
The North, despite George Mitchel’s valiant efforts to impose some American pragmatism, remains an immensely complex place where words can and do explode –just think of the recent haggling over “decommissioning.” As Fintan O’Toole noted in the New Yorker (The Meanings of Union, April 27, 1998), crafting agreements in the North will require a poet’s skill, not a pragmatist’s words.
The ancient words of the Persian poet Rumi seem particularly pertinent to the current impasse in the North of Ireland.
Out beyond ideas of Right doing and wrong doing There is a field. I’ll meet you there.
And if the Catholic and Protestant diehards ever make it out to that field, they’ll find Michael Longley and Ciaran Carson waiting to have words with them. High kudos to them for these collections. I can think of no two better Irish people to lead the charge of the write brigade across the field of new Irish dreams.
The Old Blog Node 