We have over 40 posts about Irish Saints (despite being very unsaintly ourselves). That’s because Irish saints are so much part of the Irish culture. Two of our national holidays are for Irish saints (Patrick on March 17 and Brigid on Feb 1 or closest Monday), many of our place names come from Saints (anything starting in Kill or Cill, for example), and many of us are named for Irish saints (you know who you are). Above is a window labelled the Vision of St Ita, and our header image is Dympna.
So I have put together a new Page. Our Pages (find them by clicking on the little three-bar icon in the header) act as sub-menus so that you can more easily navigate content, since we have almost 1200 posts.
The Irish saints we write about (except for one) predate the Vatican’s formal canonisation process — they became saints by local acclamation and long tradition rather than papal decree. Of the four Irish saints officially canonised by Rome – Malachy, Lawrence O’Toole, Oliver Plunkett (above), and Charles of Mount Argus* (no, I had never heard of him either) – only Oliver Plunkett features among our posts. The 19th-century revival of interest in early Irish texts brought many of these saints back into wider knowledge. See The White Hound of Brigown (that’s him below) for example, for the wonderful translations and language of Whitley Stokes, one of the great scholars of early Irish literature.
Finally, if you have a more than passing interest in Irish saints I highly recommend the blog Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae AKA All the Saints of Ireland, or its sister site https://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/ AKA The Three Wonderworking Patrons of Ireland. They are both by my friend Marcella. What she doesn’t know about Irish saints isn’t worth knowing.
Kudos to anyone who can name the two saints in the image above and tell us what the younger one is holding.
*A correspondent has informed me that St Charles of Mount Argus is the patron saint of the Gardaí – the Irish police force.
I have spent most of this week at a symposium in Trinity College on Stained Glass, and there we received the good news that soon there will be another Thomas Denny window in Ireland. Way back in 2018 I wrote about Ireland’s Newest Stained Glass Window. I have updated and edited that post, and it follows this introduction. It’s a story that reaches into the heart of Irish History and the turbulent chronicles of the town of Tralee in Kerry.
Tralee’s Reconciliation window is no longer Ireland’s newest, although it remains for now the only Irish window by Thomas Denny, the most celebrated stained glass artist working in Britain today. Besides this blog post, I also wrote about this window for the Irish Arts Review, and for the 2023 edition of Glory, Azure and Gold: The Stained-Glass Windows of Thomas Denny.
The rest of this post is a lightly edited version of my 2018 piece.
It isn’t often that new stained glass windows are installed in Irish churches. In fact, depressingly, many churches fall into disrepair from lack of use and the windows break (or are broken). Nowadays we are more likely to be losing stained glass than gaining it. So it’s a huge cause for celebration when a community commissions a new piece. Hats off to Tralee!
The Garden of Eden or an image of reconciliation: one of the window details
This window is out of the ordinary in many ways. Let’s start with who commissioned it, which leads us on to the theme. Although it’s installed in the Catholic church, it was a joint initiative of the Catholic and Church of Ireland congregations. There may be other windows that can claim that distinction, but I don’t know of them. Here is the complete window.
The theme is Reconciliation, and the central figure is the return of the prodigal son. The right panel is of Jesus reading from the Book of Isaiah and the left is of John the Baptist, patron saint of the church.
The father embraces his prodigal son
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a natural choice to illustrate reconciliation, with the father embracing the son who has squandered his inheritance but returns home, contrite, to his family. Instead of punishing him (as his brother resentfully feels the father should do) his father embraces him, orders that the fatted calf be slain for a feast, and says, It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
Jesus Reading from Isaiah is perhaps at one remove from a direct reference to reconciliation. It happened in Nazareth, his old home town, and he read at the behest of the elders. The passage is a beautiful one and points to ideas of love and healing, and perhaps to the real purpose of Christianity, no matter the denomination: he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.
St John is the patron saint of the church
Possibly my favourite image is that of John. Usually, he is shown in the act of baptising Jesus, but here he is, the ascetic in his coat of camel hair, very much as he described himself, as a voice crying in the wilderness.
A myriad of tiny images fills the panels – figures holding hands (reconciliation), swallows (hope of spring, renewal), Tralee Bay, figures from Tralee history. . . there are even tiny names engraved where it is impossible to see them. Take a look at this video, where Thomas Denny shows us some of those names.
Thomas Denny? Yes – he’s the artist but the significance of that goes beyond the fact that he is one of Britain’s most eminent and respected stained glass artists, responsible for numerous windows in British churches. A browse of his website reveals the breadth and depth of his skill and the uniqueness of his style. The Tralee windows are typical – blazing with colour, filled with large and small figures and scenes that reveal themselves upon close inspection, rich and intricate, thoughtfully composed to draw the viewer into the subject of the panels.
Tralee Bay
You see, the Dennys came to Tralee as part of a British military expedition in the 1500s and the name is inextricably linked with the North Kerry area. Sir Edward Denny (1547 to 1599) was one of the architects and enforcers of the Plantation of Munster, and was rewarded with lands taken from the Earl of Desmond including Tralee Castle, a knighthood and the title of Governor of Kerry. Thomas is a direct descendent.
Sir Edward Denny. Image used with the permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum
The Dennys stayed in Ireland for hundreds of years, branching out and enlarging their holdings. Eventually, along with many members of the Anglo-Irish landlord class, they lost their lands. In the case of Thomas’s grandfather, although he was a baronet he was also a clergyman, living the life of an impoverished cleric dedicated to his church. The move to England was related to his church service. In Ireland, such a history as this is a complicated legacy, and Thomas was eager to be part of the whole idea of a reconciliation window, donating his services to the project. Over twenty members of the Denny family came for the unveiling. This adds a rich and poignant dimension to the purpose of the window – reconciling the past with the present, and looking to the future.
The father runs out to meet his returning son
Oh – and Thomas Denny’s soon-to-be newest window in Ireland? It’s going into St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, hopefully next spring.
Shane O’Driscoll is an Irish artist/designer. Ceadogán Rugs is based in Wexford and makes wonderful carpets and rugs using Irish designers. Take a look at their site – search by designer and you will see Shane and his rugs. Mine is the Swisha – I know now that it’s probably named for a piece of music. Above is a test piece for Swisha that ended up in Shane’s house. Look at that view!
Shane also happens to be my neighbour – well, close enough, just the other side of Mount Gabriel. He exhibits from time to time in the Blue House Gallery in Schull and I had met him there a couple of times: a man with a laid-back surfer-dude vibe. I love his prints and became curious about his art and his process. I also wanted to know more about my rug.
I visited him in his studio the other day. What I found was someone who is incredibly articulate about his vision, and generous in sharing that with me.
I was right about the surfing connection – surfing and skateboard culture, with its vibrant and modern designs and cool counter-culture energy was a huge influencer. He studied graphic design and worked as an art director for years in Dublin. A month-long career break was all it took to show him that he needed to go out on his own. He hasn’t looked back since.
The essence of Shane’s approach is to search for the elemental – the basic shapes that are hidden at the heart of everything we look at. He showed me a zine he produced while on a Paris residency – things that you and I wouldn’t even notice are grist to the mill for him.
Another collection of photographs is from wandering around the land on which he lives – the fields farmed by his wife’s family.
He said he approached designing rugs as partly a sculptural exercise, since it is three dimensional. Pile depth can vary and Ceadogán encouraged him to think outside the normal rug shape – although as it happens my own rug is square and has only one pile depth.
Shane’s work is all about balance. His motifs are often exact, geometrical, statically arranged on a flat background. But they bounce against each other and against elements that are more casual, less structured. Shane told me that the loose black brush stroke in Swisha – it’s called a gestural mark – grounds the design and creates a tension he likes against the sharp and disciplined edges of the blue and maroon elements. Perhaps the name Swisha, he said, also reflects the swoosh of the paint across the page (or the screen). It humanises the hard geometry, and in a way is a rebellion against all those years in design when precision was everything. He realised once it was finished that it wasn’t in fact finished and that’s when the orange went in – it’s like a piece of orange paper with torn edges.
Shane works always with music playing and his titles are a calendar of what he’s been listening to. The music blocks out the tendency to analyse and over-intellectualise what he’s working on – he refers to a state of free flow – he finds it helps him focus and ‘centres his brain.’
Although prints are his main work, he has designed packaging, beer cans, water bottles (for the Irish Olympic team!), Easter egg boxes, coffee cups – all instantly recognisable with their signature shapes and vibrant colours.
He’s done lots of street art and painting on buildings – next time you fly out of Cork Airport you will see this.
“The Wonder of Travel” is Cork’s newest street art mural, curated and created by Shane O’Driscoll and Peter Martin of ARDÚ Street Art. Picture: Darragh Kane. Courtesy Irish Examiner
It was a privilege and a pleasure to spend time with you, Shane. And thank you for my gorgeous rug. Now all I have to do is repaint the house to go with it.
Yes, it’s a quirky title for a book, but it is also part of a wider project that involved exhibitions and workshops.
Tess Leak and Sharon Whooley are the two genii behind it all, and last week I participated in an event on Whiddy where the book was launched and some of the writers were there to read their stories. It’s one of several projects of Arts Council-funded Creative Places, West Cork Islands, which aims to build sustained arts investment and create opportunities for local arts programmes across the 7 [inhabited] islands of West Cork.
These are all stories collected from the inhabited Islands of West Cork. As you will remember from my series on the Skeams, life revolved around the sea, working the land, and keeping animals and birds. Danny O’Leary (below) talked about his life on the sea. He gave up a place in UCC to go picking winkles. He could make a good living: They’re totally gone. There used to be crowds of people at them, all over the island.
Rose O’Sullivan told us about raising turkeys.
The 8th of December was when the islanders would sell the live turkeys in Bantry and each family would have about two dozen to sell. There would be a bit of an auction in Bantry for them. Every family had their own boat to take out their turkeys for the fair. I remember our Aunt Ellie talking about the 1930s and how it was the grandest sight to see the turkeys, they’d be gathered and gobbled and headed down the road on the island and that was your money then for Christmas.
And then one or two of them would be plucked and prepped and sent to England in the post. We had two aunts in England and our mothers here would be sending the turkeys over and I once asked our cousin, “How were the turkeys when they arrived?” and he said “They were bloody green! My father would be down in the back garden digging a hole and there must have been about 20 of them buried there over the years.” Nobody had the heart to tell them this at home.
I was very taken with Sheila McCarthy’s story about being the only girl on the mussel raft. She was 15 when she started and she gave us a detailed account of what the work was like. That’s her, reading her story, above.
Even though I was the only girl, I was the tallest on the raft, so I was always given the job of tying on the socks. I would be lying flat on my belly on the wooden raft leaning over into the bay tying the socks on. I’d have two lads sitting on my legs to make sure I wouldn’t fall in. I couldn’t swim either. There was no health and safety then! it was great fun but looking back I wonder how in the name of God we were allowed to do itI
If you want to know what the socks were, you’ll have to buy the book! It’s an absolute delight – the charm of it lies in its authenticity and the true voices of the islanders. It’s the kind of book you will keep by the bedside and dip into, marvelling and chuckling as you do so. You can get it at the wonderful Worm Books in Schull – they will be happy to mail it to you if you aren’t lucky enough to live here.
Now – back to the swallows. You will be relieved to hear, I know, that I have a simple and elegant solution to the droppings. I found a board in the attic and dragged it down. It was heavy, but I had your voices in my head, urging me to do what I could to ensure the swallows could stay. I then hauled it up a stepladder (the effort!) and placed it carefully across the beams under the nest. Voilá! Are you happy now?
The swallows are. They are busily stitching and attaching and adding twiggy bits. There was high drama today as they saw off a Magpie with much swooping and twittering and dive-bombing.
Himself appears to spend most of the time in a lordly surveying of the area, while Herself is busy gathering and constructing. However, all my sources say they work together to nest-build so I am probably projecting feminist sensibility onto my observations.
I sat in there for a while today and was glad to see that my presence did not deter them from their work. This all bodes well for a peaceful cohabitation. I hope to announce the nestling count in due course.
I did a series of posts, Rewilding my One Acre about my last house, Nead an Iolair, in which I charted over several years all the wild flowers that grew on our property. That included my wildflower meadow (more of a patch in reality) as well as all the little plants that just showed up in the grass and the gravel.
I want to do the same at Grove Orchard – that’s the name of my new house and it’s a name with some pedigree, deserving perhaps of a future post. So I have been out with my camera, lying in the grass, which is not the greatest choice for someone prone to hay fever, but I grudge my readers no sacrifice. Here is the result and I hope you enjoy it. You can click on Watch on YouTube for full screen.
The music is An Droichead /The Bridge by Liam O’Flynn, used with permission. It was originally commissioned to reflect the theme of President Mary McAleese’s presidency, ‘Building Bridges’ and performed for her inauguration as President of Ireland. This version features Mark Knopfler on guitar.
Because this is an established garden/orchard, I have included what flowers are blooming now, be they wild or cultivated. And sometimes just leaves, because they are so eye-catching (that Japanese Maple! Those apple blossoms!) and also any critters that hove into view. I don’t know who owns the cat, but he (she?) owns my garden. There’s a twice-daily patrol to make sure all is in order.
By no means is every plant native. Or benign. I have discovered some aliens – Chilean Iris and Three Cornered Leek for example are both non-native but at the moment they are alive with bees so I am reconciling to their presence in my garden. And alas, my Bluebells are not native, but the Spanish imports. Darn.
I have a wilderness area (ok, an unkempt part of the garden) and in it I have discovered Mock Strawberry (Potentilla indica) aka Yellow-flowered Strawberry. It’s rare and invasive and I have submitted a report to the Biodiversity Data Centre.
And I seem to have LOTS of Lords-and-Ladies, aka Cuckoo Pint, or Arum maculatum. It’s native but very poisonous to humans and pets. BUT – birds love it, apparently, so I’ll keep it but keep an eye on it. The Irish name for it is Cluas Chaoin (Kloo-us keen) – it means smooth-surfaced ear and isn’t that just the perfect descriptor? The image above shows both Lords-and Ladies and a Mock Strawberry.
On the whole, the garden is alive with native wild plants – it’s most of what you will see in the slideshow. It’s also alive with birds – I have just downloaded the Merlin App so I know I have far more birds than the ones I can actually see. And I need advice, Dear Readers! A swallow pair is busy building a nest in my garden room – right over the table. I hate to knock it down, but I am not fond of bird poop in my tea. What to do?
I am the grateful recipient, earlier this week of Mary Oliver’s poetry collection A Thousand Mornings. Thank you to my friend Tim Farrelly – not sure what I did to deserve this, but I can’t believe I was unfamiliar with this poet. As soon as I cracked the book, I was entranced. Oliver died in 2019, aged 83 and I gather I was almost alone in the world in not knowing her work.
I have read and re-read her poem ‘Good-Bye Fox’ and I just knew that I had to unite it with photographs of our beloved Ferdia, about whom I wrote in this post, and Robert wrote in this one. I have applied for and been given permission to quote this wonderful poem in full.* So first, here it is.
Good-Bye Fox
He was lying under a tree, licking up the shade,
Hello again, Fox, I said.
And hello to you too, said Fox, looking up and not bounding away.
You’re not running away? I said.
Well, I’ve heard of your conversation about us. News travels even among foxes, as you might know or not know.
What conversation do you mean?
Some lady said to you, “The hunt is good for the fox.” And you said, “Which fox?”
Yes, I remember. She was huffed.
So you’re okay in my book.
Your book! That was in my book, that’s the difference between us.
Yes, I agree. You fuss over life with your clever words, mulling and chewing on its meaning, while we just live it.
Oh!
Could anyone figure it out, to a finality? So why spend so much time trying. You fuss, we live.
And he stood, slowly, for he was old now, and ambled away.
I found myself mulling and chewing over what Oliver is saying and contrasting it with my experiences with Ferdia.
The poem’s central dynamic — a fox who just lives while the poet fusses with words and meaning — relates closely to our relationship with Ferdia. Robert and I were doing exactly what Oliver’s fox gently mocks: writing, naming, observing.
And yet. . . Ferdia seemed to choose our company. He came back, repeatedly, voluntarily. That kinda complicates Oliver’s characterisation of the fox as loftily above our interest in him.
For me, it’s not just about a fox. It’s also about loss, and what endures in memory.
But I don’t have to rely just on memory, because we were recording, we were mulling and chewing over his presence in our lives. And we were loving it all – how he wore a rut in the lawn to our terrace, how he barked gently outside the window to alert us to his presence, how he carried scraps home to his family, how he loved to keep us company as we sat outside, and how much he liked it when Robert played his melodeon.
Ferdia ambled away in the end. I am so grateful we fussed over him while we could.
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