During our recent travels in Ireland, we visited Birr Castle, a beautiful castle in wonderful grounds and well worth the visit. The castle is owned and still partially occupied by Lord and Lady Rosse. The Earl of Rosse is the brother of the Earl of Snowdon who was, for eighteen years married to Princess Margaret. In the bookshop, I found a copy of a book called Room for Books – Paintings of Irish Libraries by Alison Rosse. Alison Rosse is the Countess of Rosse. It is, as it says, a selection of paintings of various Irish libraries, both private and public, beautifully done. The paintings reminded me of the painting of Coole Park Library done by Yeats. which I had just seen, shown in my post of yesterday (scroll down).
I am no art critic but I did find these paintings well done, somewhat but certainly not too much impressionistic and all giving the flavour of the library in question, all of which have their similarities – high shelves with books in them – but all of which have their own distinct appearance. Each painting is accompanied by a useful description/history written by William Laffan, an Irish art historian. My only regret is that I have not visited any of them and, as many of them are private, probably never will; however this is definitely an excellent way of seeing and appreciating fine libraries you will probably never see. The one shown above, by the way, is the library at Birr Castle.
The best way to get the book is to visit Birr Castle. If that is not possible, it is available online from the publishers, the Irish Georgian Society and from Offaly History for the very reasonable price of €10.00.
I have recently returned from a two week holiday in Ireland and while the trip was primarily scenic rather than literary, we did visit a couple of places with literary associations and, in particular, two places I have always wanted to visit.
The first was the Aran Islands. The Aran Islands consist of three islands. We visited only the largest Inís Mor (Inishmore). The key feature on the island is the ancient fortress of Dun Aonghasa (see photo at left), with the site having been occupied since 1500 BC. However, from the literary point of view and what first got me interested in the islands is J M Synge. Synge stayed there for several summers, mainly on Inis Meáin, the second largest island but he also spent time on Inís Mor.
While there he wrote a a book on the islands. He also improved his knowledge of the Irish language. (The locals still speak Irish to one another.) His play Riders to the Sea was set there and his stay on the islands undoubtedly influenced his other plays.
Synge was not born on the Aran Islands but Liam O’Flaherty was. Four of his books are on my website.
The Aran Islands were also the setting for one of the great classic films: Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran. Flaherty was born of an Irish father though he himself was born in Michigan. I will mention two other less worthy films, shot on the islands: Leap Year, based on Powell and Pressburger’s brilliant I Know Where I’m Going!, and Matchmaker.
I have long been a fan of US film director John Ford, particularly his Westerns. His mother was born on the Aran Islands. We also visited Cong where his film The Quiet Man was made. This was, in my view, a not very good romantic comedy(John Wayne as the romantic lead!) but Cong loves it as you can see from the photo of the statue of Wayne carrying Maureen O’Hara. Much of the town is devoted to honouring this film, which always seem to be showing. My view is stick to his Westerns.
Coole Park when inhabited
W B Yeats has long been my favourite poet. As well as a noted poet, Yeats was one of the founders of the Irish Literary Theatre, which led to the Abbey Theatre. One of his co-founders was Lady Augusta Gregory. She and her family lived at Coole Park, near Galway.
Lady Gregory left Coole Park in 1927 but remained there till her death in 1932. Yeats forecast its demise in his poem Coole Park 1929. The house was abandoned, left to fall into ruin and demolished in 1941-42. It has since become a nature reserve and the Irish government has now built an excellent visitor centre about the house, its inhabitants, its history and visitors. There are rumours that they plan to do a lot more to develop the site.
The painting to the left is one of the items in the exhibition and it was painted by Yeats, W. B., not his brother or father both of whom were famous artists. You can also see the famous autograph tree, where many of the famous visitors, including those mentioned above, carved their initials. Though they are numbered, the bark has grown so that you can barely see any of the letters.
A couple of miles away, there is a Gregory Museum, which is, in fact, a schoolhouse, built in colonial style, for the local schoolchildren, funded by the Gregory family. When a new school was built, the building was kept on as a museum. It is run entirely by volunteers and a thanks to Tony and Yvonne for showing us around.
A couple of miles further on is the tower (right, above) that Yeats bought (called Thoor Ballylee) and where he lived in the summers. It inspired his poem The Tower. It was built by the de Burgos, a Norman family, probably in the fourteen century and is entirely surrounded by water, which means that it frequently floods. It also fell into rack and ruin but was restored and is now also run by volunteers. If the weather is nice, which it was for us, you get splendid views but I imagine it could be very cold (and wet) in winter.
The latest addition to my website is Padraic Colum‘s The Flying Swans. Colum is better-known as a poet, playwright and recounter of Irish folk tales so this book – one of the two adult novels – he wrote – is relatively unknown, which is a pity, as it is a very fine story. It tells of the O’Rehill family, formerly Irish gentry but pushed out somewhat by their English colonial masters, but now – late nineteenth century – trying to get back. We follow, in particular, two members, father and son Robert and Ulick. Both father and son seem adrift, unsure of where they are going and what to do. Robert manages to alienate several of his family. He twice abandons his wife and children and shows a general lack of responsibility. Ulick struggles to help his abandoned mother and bring up his younger brother but he, too, cannot find his place and loses his way more than once. Colum tells a superb story, augmented with a large cast of colourful Irish characters.
The latest addition to my website is Sam Coll‘s The Abode of Fancy. This is a first novel by an Irishman, who certainly mines Irish literary traditions. It tells the story of various supernatural creatures, in particular the Mad Monk, formerly deceased but now back to life, his deceased brother and dog, and his affair with a banshee, as well as the stories of Simeon Jerome Collins and his father’s odd assortment of friends, drunks, failed lovers, former chess champions, including Simeon’s disastrous love life and his irritating student friend, Konrad. Other characters – real and otherworldly – all make an appearance, as the various stories intermix and then go shooting off in various directions. It is all a bit chaotic and, at times, not as interesting as it might be, but it is certainly a very credible work for a first novel.
The latest addition to my website is J. G. Farrell‘s Troubles. This novel, which won the Lost Man Booker Prize more than thirty years after the author’s death, is the first in Farrell’s acclaimed Empire Trilogy. It is set in the crumbling Majestic Hotel, a symbol of the decaying British Empire, located in County Wexford in Ireland, at the end of the First World War and during a period when unrest in Ireland is increasing. Major Archer, who had been invalided out of the army for what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder, seems to have accidentally got engaged to Angela, daughter of the owner of the Majestic and goes to stay with the family there, her father, staunchly opposed to any Irish independence, her irresponsible brother and her almost evil twin sisters. He barely sees Angela, who is ill, but watches as both the hotel and British rule in Ireland, crumble in synchronicity. It is a superb novel and deserves the reputation it had when it first came out.
The latest addition to my website is Paul Murray‘s The Mark and the Void. This is a hilarious satire on the banking crisis of 2008 onwards and follows the story of an Everyman, Claude, a Frenchman working in a Dublin-based investment bank. We follow the nefarious and wittily described doings of the bank which are, at best, immoral and often illegal. We also follow Claude’s failed love life and, in particular, his friend Paul (possibly Murray), a failed writer, who comes up with various ideas to make his living, including robbing Claude’s bank and setting up a waitress porn website. Murray mocks bankers and banking, writers and publishers, the modern art world, the English, politicians, Eastern Europeans, lovers and anything else that comes into his sight, all the while exposing the failure of the banking crisis in a hilarious way. Unless you think bankers and writers are the salt of the earth, you cannot fail to enjoy this novel.
The latest addition to my website is Joyce Cary‘s Not Honour More. This is the third in Carey’s second trilogy and definitely the weakest. It follows on from the first – Prisoner of Grace – and is narrated by Jim Latter, former soldier and colonial officer, married to Nina, née Woodville, who had been married to the Liberal politician, Chester Nimmo, for a long time. Chester now Lord Nimmo is still living with Latters and Latter suspects him of having an affair with Nina. Meanwhile the 1926 General Strike is starting and Latter is called on to organise the Specials (auxiliary police force) while Nimmo sees it as a way back into politics. Of course, it all goes badly wrong for all of them. With Latter being a most unsympathetic character, volatile, jealous and full of his own self-importance, his narration does not endear him to us nor does it make for as an enjoyable book as its predecessors.
The latest addition to my website is Joyce Cary‘s Except the Lord, the second of a trilogy that started with Prisoner of Grace. In this previous novel, we followed the adult life of Chester Nimmo, as told by his ex-wife, Nina. This book is told by Chester himself and is mainly about his childhood. He grew up in a rural Devon village. His father was both a farm labourer and an Adventist preacher. The family was poor and, like many of the people of that time, suffered from health problems. His mother and two young sisters all died of tuberculosis. As Chester is writing this account, presumably for Nina, in an attempt to win her back, he often tells of things he did and the lessons he learned from his actions and the consequence, with the aim of showing how he has developed. We follow his interest in religion, left-wing politics and unionism as well as his relationship with his family. It did not work as well as the previous one for me but is still an interesting read to see how the adult became what he was.
The latest addition to my website is Joyce Cary‘s Prisoner of Grace, the first book of his second trilogy. The story is told by Nina Latter, formerly Nimmo, née Woodville. She had been married for some time to Chester Nimmo who became a successful and (on the whole) principled politician in the early part of the twentieth century in the Liberal governments before and during World War I. She had not wanted to marry Chester but she was pregnant by another man – her cousin, Jim, whom we know from the beginning she will later marry – who could not marry her because of his army career. Chester is happy to marry her (her £5000 inheritance was not a deterrent though certainly not the main reason) and she helps him in his political career. He eventually becomes a minister. The book is both about his political career but also about the politics of their marriage, which are often more complicated than his political career. Cary gives us another first-class book about what is ultimately a failed career and a failed marriage, albeit with its high points as well.
The latest addition to my website is Joyce Cary‘s The Horse’s Mouth. This is the third book in Cary’s first trilogy and far the best-known, primarily because of the character of the narrator/protagonist Gulley Jimson and also because of the the film of the book starring Alec Guinness. Jimson is a thorough rogue, continually cheating, deceiving and lying, often in trouble with the law but always trying to paint his masterpiece, though never succeeding. The book is hilariously funny as he manages to wiggle out of most (though certainly not all) of his scrapes, and tries to paint.
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