Tuesday

Even though Pearce was sick at home, Dervla and Oscar spent the afternoon/evening with us. It was lovely and she brought gifts!!

I got The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry, perhaps because I was giving her grief for not really getting Yeats.

Here's one stanza from a poem I found about the Gougane Barra by Jeremiah Joseph Callanan:

How oft when the summer sun rested on Clara,
And lit the dark heath on the hills of Ivera,
Have I sought thee, sweet spot, from my home by the ocean,
And trod all thy wilds with a minstrel's devotion,
And thought of thy bards, when assembling together,
In the cleft of thy rocks, or the depth of thy heather,
They fled from the Saxon's dark bondage and slaughter,
And waked their last song by the rush of thy water.

The book is an excellent anthology that covers the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, to the mythical heroes with whom I am enthralled, to "Ireland's women, and her men", to Irish song, to the rebellions and the revival.

The Gougane Barra is this beautiful little forest that we found on our last trip to Ireland. We fell so in love with it that we bought a photograph in Kenmare at the Skyline Gallery (check out his stuff, it is amazing).