Mist and Pigs

I mentioned last week that an Irish/Scots Gaelic king or lord had serious obligations to his people and was expected to be absolutely just and therefore to maintain the harmony of the human with the natural and supernatural worlds.

Power and glory are always a temptation, though, and particularly in periods when the structure of existence seemed shaky (the Norse invasions and aftermath that – like in England – destroyed some kingdoms and thus encouraged the expansion of others: then the rebound from the Anglo-Norman invasions), some men decided to just go for it, to hell with tradition.

Most of the time, though, the structures of daily life and of society made it easier to do the right thing. And, of course, some poet might always appear to tell you that you were screwing up. It wasn’t just the poet: behind him was the whole power of the forces of nature and “supernature”, and his satire would not only  make people snicker at you, but it would also symbolically withdraw the mandate of heaven, and all kinds of bad things would happen to you and your people.

It’s easier to be good when “good” is normal and expected.

The Tudor and Stuart dynasty English who conquered and colonized Ireland in the late 16th and 17th centuries didn’t care about any of that. Their society assumed you could be a rapacious bastard all your life, and as long as you were of the right religion and paid dues to the authorities, you’d be fine. You could always repent on your death bed, but it sure looked like might made right: the guys who killed and plundered got very rich. 

Anyway, Ireland was there for Englishman to get rich. The people were barbarians and followed the wrong religion and didn’t matter, so you could do things there you couldn’t get away with in England, then go home one day and enjoy life. Or you could grab lands and live like a lord in Ireland while the Teigs did all the work.

The Irish didn’t see it that way.

They saw big armies with cannon and big horses. They saw men who did not observe the rules and thought it was fine to destroy crops and starve people, slaughter prisoners and women and children, lie, go back on an oath, swindle, assassinate…that kind of thing. They saw those guys win again and again and take your lands. No harm done, though: if you were harmless and inoffensive and lucky, they would allow you to use some land at a high rent.

The Irish saw the end of the world.

The same thing has happened often in other times and places, and no one knows, but the Irish could write,
Aogán O Raithile from east of Killarney was rediscovered in the Irish Revival of the 1890s etc. and he is worth rediscovering.  He was born about 1670 and, except for an O Dálaigh family that stayed pretty quiet in the backcountry nearby, the bardic schools were gone, so he did not possess the kind of learning that slightly earlier poets like O Bruadair, O Donncha an Ghleanna, etc. did. This makes him more accessible to us, in a way, because he speaks plainly, not in a traditional idiom.

He was more or less a refugee for most of his life, taking shelter wherever he could find a surviving Irish noble family that still had land. (Mostly they were Mac Carthaigh or de Brún of the old lords of his area.) His poems are those of a man pushed to the edge and dealing with ruin and evil, and they do not mince words.

There was hope, to begin, that the Stuart kings would return to England and right what had been done in Ireland, and his vision poems see the Otherworld Queens returning to the land with good tidings:

Maidean sul smaoin Titan a chosa do luaill
Ar mhullach cnoic aoird aoibhinn do lodamar suas,
Tarraster linn scaoth bhruinneasll soilbhir suairc-
Gasra bhí i Sídh Seanaibh solas-bhrugh thuaidh.

Fearastar scím driaíochta nár doracha snua
Ó Ghaillimh na líog-gheal go Corcaigh na gcuan;
Barra gach crainn síor-chuireas toradh agus cnuas,
Meas daire ar gach coill, fír-mhil ar clochaibh go buan…

Oner morning before the Sun even thought to stir his feet,
To the summit of a fine high hill I climbed (literally “we”).
There came to me a band of joyous happy maidens:
A band from the resplendent (Fairy) palace north there, Shee (Shanid?).

A druid cloud spread over all, of no dark appearance,
From Galway of shining stones to Cork with its bays:
The top of every tree put forth fruit and nuts,
A crop of acorns in each oak wood, true honey on every stone,,,

But by was clear by 1729 that darkness was not to lift.

From a lament for a last Irish lord:

Cabhair ní ghairfead go gcuirthear mé i gcruinn-chomhraiinn,
Dar an leabhar, dá ngairfinn, níor ghaire-de an ní dhomh-sa:
Ár gceodhnasch uile, glac-chumasdach shíl Eoghainn,
Is tóllta a chuisle ‘gus d’imigh a bhrí ar feochaidh…

Mo ghlam is minic, is sílimse síordheora,
Is trom mo thubaist ‘s is duine mé ar míchothrom,
Fonn ní thigeann im ghaire ‘s mé ag caoi ar bhóithre
Ach foghar na Muice nach gontar le saigheadóireacht.

Stadfadsa feasta – is gar dom éag gan mhoill
Ó treascaradh dragain Leamhain, Léin is Laoi:
Rachasd ‘na bhfasc le searc na laoch do chill,
Na flatha fá raibh mu shean roimh éag do Chríost.

I will not cry out for help until I’m put in a narrow coffin,
And by the Book, though I called, it would be no nearer to me.
Our whole support, a skilled hand of the seed of Eoghain,
His veins holed now, and all his might decaying.

It’s often I cry out in pain and tears come always,
Heavy disaster I carry always,  a man on uncertain ground,
No music I hear anywhere near as I go down the road lamenting
But only the squeal of the Pig that is not slain by arrows (i.e. death)

I will stop now and forever, for death draws soon near
Since the dragons of (river) Laune, Killarney and Lee are thrown down.
I will go to them in the graveyard, with love for those heroes:
The lords under whom my own ancestors served (as poets) since before Christ died.