St Patrick’s Day in Glendalough
by Orna Ross
St Patrick’s Day. My kids (aged 20 & 18) were headed downtown for the parade and the céilí, a day and night of what the Irish call craic agus ceol (drinking & dancing). My beloved was away in Plum Village, a zen centre in the south of France. So I took myself off to Glendalough.
Given that the Irish national holiday was originally a celebration of the coming of Christianity, a trip to the famous ruins of a monastic city seemed like a fitting thing to with the day (Dublin craic agus ceol no longer holding the attractions for me that they once did).
And I had another motive. Iseult Gonne-Stuart, daughter of the famous Irish revolutionary, Maud Gonne, is buried in Glendalough and Iseult’s life forms a central strand to A Dance in Time, the long novel I’ve just finished writing.
I wanted to put the book to bed in the place where much of it had been conceived and written, so I could feel free to get on with the new one that’s starting to simmer.
It was a great day, tramping up mountain paths, stopping to write or take pictures (see below for one of the round tower pictured from Iseult’s graveside), and all in sunshine – a great bonus, because Paddy’s Day, as it’s known in Ireland, is usually damp and grey.
As always, Glendalough proved inspiring and I found myself scribbling a ”poem”. Normally, I write these only for myself. I’m a novelist, not a poet, and my verses dance ignorance and laziness all over the rules of prosody. I don’t consider them to be poems at all, except that they give concentrated form to a feeling, and I never make them public.
Today I’m making an exception. Not because this effort is any better than the others but as a small acknowledgement.
Iseult Gonne-Stuart never fulfilled her writing potential. Surrounded by gifted, successful and opinionated men, her standards for herself were too exacting and prompted a disabling level of self-criticism. Exacting standards can prove useful at the end of the writing process but Iseult brought them in at the beginning — and thereby strangled her words before giving them full form.
As writers, good work is always our aim, but I believe it’s better to produce bad writing than to choke off creation with perfectionism.
I’m sure if I worked on my doggerel, I could improve it. I probably won’t — I tend to save my working energy for fiction — but here it is anyway: my uneven and unworked tribute to Glendalough, to Iseult, to the impetus that gave rise to A Dance in Time. And, mostly, to the sweet sorrow of saying goodbye to the years of joyful work I spent on that book, today finally completed.
Day Away
After climbing paths that urge you up
and further up
to top the crashing waterfall,
then higher
After being stopped, and stopped again,
by sightings of bare mountain
dropping sheer
into the valley, sliced
by the mesh of rivers rushing
to empty into two, long lakes
that somehow take their gush and hold it
still
After walking through the ruins of seven churches
head tilted back to view the top
of the round tower that took the shape
of the saint’s steeple,
and thrust it up, three times as high,
from earth to sky,
to mark the ground you walk upon
as holy
then you will know the allure of here,
as of all the places we call sacred, is
the silence.
The voice
of your own blood
emptying into the deep.
Glendalough Round Tower from Iseult Gonne’s graveside.
Enjoy what’s left of Paddy’s Day… and have a great writing week!
Orna
7 Responses to “St Patrick’s Day in Glendalough”
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March 18th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I love this, Aine. Thank you - just the inspiration and moment of stillness and beauty I needed for the day after St. Patrick’s Day!
March 18th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
this is just lovely.
March 21st, 2008 at 3:42 pm
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March 22nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
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April 1st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Thanks for submitting this to the blog carnival at The Rhythm of Write! Good luck!
Deborah
http://www.therhythmofwrite.com
April 7th, 2008 at 5:19 am
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