The Road to Tara

The Road to Tara.

William Bulfin cycling through Meath at the turn of the last century stopped on the railway bridge in Kilmessan to get his first view of Tara. He had come a long way. A native of Derrinlough in Co Offaly he returned to Ireland after seventeen years in the Argentine and set out on a journey that would take him to almost every corner of the Island. Plotting a course from Crúachain to Uisneach, he searched in vain for any reference to what he described as once one of the great capitals of the world and found none.

Battling through drovers herding cattle from the railway stations at Enfield and The Hill of Down he spent the night in Connell's Hotel in Trim before heading out for the Hill. On announcing that he was one of the first of an advance party of the Gael returning, they enquired of him if they would be all as wet and as hungry as he was. "Past the courthouse," they said, "Turn left, and out by Kilmessan across the Boyne." (William Bulfin: Rambles in Eirinn).

Looking back from the Hill he described Meath as a great forest, a tenantless expanse of grass from which man had banished himself and he lamented the absence of people. He held to a set of views that were not politically correct then and perhaps even less so now and if he failed to see the finer points of some or the shortcomings of others, he knew what he was standing on. His friend Arthur Griffith and others were instrumental in bringing to an end excavations by an evangelical group who believed The Ark of the Covenant was buried on the Hill. Who knows?

In the hundred years since Bulfin's been there Tara has hosted many visitors, the local volunteers assembled in 1916 , while there must be many in the surrounding parishes who remember the celebrations in '48 or '49, not forgetting the Pope's visit and waiting for helicopters that didn't come. Daniel O' Connell delivered a speech there before the famine which would make uncomfortable reading for the great and the good.

Approaching Tara today there is no shortage of signs, and if you read the small print some of them proclaim Meath to be the heritage capital of Ireland, and it is, but it is a heritage that is badly protected. Tara is perhaps the most important archaeological and historical site in Ireland and one of the most important in the world and to drive a motorway into that complex, when there are other alternatives, does not make sense.

Towns along the N3 should have been bypassed years ago, and for those caught in the gridlock of Navan or Dunshaughlin then I suspect that the motorway cannot come soon enough, but it is difficult to understand why the stretch between Skryne and Tara could not have been upgraded to accommodate everyone's interest. that the protest was left to academics or actors or what the media described as "tree huggers" is to nobody's credit.

The clamour though to move the road does not make sense either. Move it to where? Tara is a complex, and if you dig anywhere in its vicinity you are sure to unearth something. In truth the road should not have gone anywhere near Tara, not between the hills or around them. Too much of what identifies us as a people is tied up in those surroundings.

Note: Tara has been nominated for inclusion in UNESCO's tentative list of World Heritage Sites.

Photograph: Looking across the valley towards Skryne. February 2009.

Cleaners

Cleaners

The sign on the doorway

Said refuge from pain

Step on into uncertainty

Escape from the rain.

The endless persuasion

Of what it all means

And the man playing soul

On the record machine.

And his voice reassures

As you stumble behind

Line following line

Blind leading the blind.

As you try to fit in

With the spirit of things

They cut to the chase

And the dealers move in.

And no matter how often

You figure the odds

When they cut to the chase

the profit was god.

Frank Murphy.

Photograph: The Yellow Steeple Trim Co. Meath

From across the Boyne.

A Knight's Tale

A little reflection

on the state we're in.

A Knight's Tale

With chaptered verse

To course his veins

He quarried out his own demesne

Set off to find the Holy Grail

The crept along the paper trails.

And naked in his stirrup cups

He'd fleece you from the bottom up

And tilt along the dotted lines

He lived in interesting times.

And tiring of such daring deeds

Drew sustenance in other creeds

Such prospects as would tilt your hat

Noblesse oblige no less than that.

Allowed such little license pleased

Himself to charge

Professional fees.

Frank Murphy.

Photograph: Cannon at Trim Castle

County Meath.

Tick Tock.

Tick Tock.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Went Mr Clock

The bogeyman of time

The measured length

And breath of days

A storybook of rhyme.

The countless hours and minutes

As they sweep across his face

The meaning of existence

It never leaves a trace.

Some ponder on the question

To be or not to be

A door that never opens

Cause they cannot find the key.

Go in search of buried treasure

Or a change of self or scene

When they never learned the lesson

That those far off hills are green.

Say that work will set you free

But it's all to no avail

It doesn't matter if you win or lose

When you chase the dragon's tail.

That faster stronger higher

Is the answer to your needs

But the trappings of success

Are just a testament to greed.

Proclaim the only answer is

That love will conquer all

And then sell their souls to Mammon

When the chips begin to fall.

Or the road to hell is paved

With good intentions never fear

The only time you have is now

The only place is here.

While some declare the answer

That it's written in the stars

A reflection in the mirror

From your seat across the Bar.

Of the lives played out in chance

Preordained a cosmic dance

A summer's day, a sunny sky

The flapping of a butterfly.

And some with resignation say

That life's a long goodbye

But the counsel of the sages

Says wake up before you die.

Photo: Boyle Co. Roscommon 2009

literary Festival.

A Poem for The New Year.

A poem for the New Year.

A little reflection on how

we treat the environment

and the animal kingdom.

Beyond this Point.

With not the wit to comprehend

His role in Nature's play.

Quite separate from

The scheme of things

He mastered all he could survey.

And thinking it a place that's strange

Of almost infinite resource

Imposed on what he can't admire

Some monument that's set in stone

To ignorance and sometimes worse

To those a plague, a curse.

Who'd measure what the profit yield

To burn the cattle in the field

And think there nothing much amiss

What kind of progress this?

Or use to ask what we have done

When fields and trees and rivers gone

And those who keep the common good

Have left a legacy that read

Caution you must be afraid

Beyond this Point

There's poison laid!

Photograph: Haymaking at the Porchfields Trim.

Scurlogstown Olympiad 2008.

A Poem for Christmas.

A poem for Christmas.

Journey's End.

Sleeper towns

Old faded signs.

Vapours trail

Cross rainbow skies.

Houses now

That watch the road

Peeping out

Through terraced rows.

Villages

And valleys though,

Steepled through

The hedgerows go.

Shadows traced

Across the glass.

Reflections and

The world goes past.

The road sweeps round

Another bend

Down crooked miles

To journey's end.

Photograph: Statue of Pope John Paul 11

NUI Maynooth Co. Kildare.

Stream of Consciousness

"Stream of Consciousness" by Austin Shiels is just that. A collection of poems that reflect on everything from philosophical leanings to love and war. A series of questions asked and then answered. Revelations. Political comment. The common thread holding them together is their focus. A sort of looking back from a high point, and if you would argue the toss... it is the love poems that stand out. Counterpoint though makes for interesting reflection.

Copies of the above from Michael Shiels.

Details at http://sherifffromnavan.blogspot.com
Or click on the link opposite.

Photo: Cover of book.