Patrick Kavanagh - Poet as Theologian

July 29:  While Maeve and Connor are in their playgroup, I head north towards Carrickmacross to visit the Patrick Kavanagh Rural and Literary Resource Center.   For the next three hours I pour through the centre recognizing that there is a message here for me ........


For a number of years now I have wanted to take the side road to visit the center.  Kavanagh ( who died in 1967) is one of Ireland's leading poets of the 20th century.   The centre is in the old church - the place of his growing up years, all the more interesting linking this with his views on religion and spirituality.  For many people of his day- he was scorned and viewed foolish, if not "touched".  He was forthright in speech calling a spade a spade.

His words of wisdom include " we get to our destiny in the end ....our role is to overcome the difficult art of not caring (what others think) ...few people he said have the courage to be themselves.  He said ... courage ... be of courage ...in the name of Father, Son and Mother.

He identified two simplicities - the simplicity of going away ...and the simplicity of returning.  In the final simplicity we are satisfied being ourselves.

What an amazing and awesome start to my returning ............


Reflection for this pilgrim and others on the journey of discovery:   
Kavanagh was a prophetic voice.  He was highly critical of the Irish Janenism - introduced into Ireland by Cardinal Paul Curren (1803 - 1878) after the synod of Thurles.  This religion was not indigenous to Ireland - it was a "continental religion with its missions and novenas" that  had displaced the druidic culture  and turned Catholicism into a religion of "voteens" and "persons obsessively preoccupied with church based devotions, spurious practices and clerical rubics".  He referred to this chapel-based religion as distancing itself from home and farm life, The old gaelic prayers said in lighting the lamp, churning and making bread were no longer given church prominence.

In his book Tarry Flyn - the holy spirit is in the hills, it is a God spirit who delights, and senses divine energy in the  "bedlam of the hills" and pulses through the the day and growing crops.  Kavanagh's indictment of Janenism goes a long way to explain the grip of the clergy and Catholic Church of his day and up to today.  It helps explain why for so long scandals and abuses were not challenged.  He saw the Janenism of his time as joyless, an insidious denial of life itself,  and a betrayal of Christianity.  See his poem on Lough Derg  (1940) - this also connects with Lavery's painting of Lough Derg pilgrims.

He declared that God is feminine, she is the one whose impulse is gentle, generous, and affirming of creativity. His God has the properties of a Celtic Ri: comley, generous bountiful, clothed in a mist of textures and colors.

Kavanagh's spirituality reinstates the local, and rediscovers God in the "bits and pieces".  He constructs a theology from the ordinary - things muddied with honest dirt are part of the iridescence of God ..."in the sows rooting where the hen scratches, we dipped our fingers in the pocket of God."

July 28 2010: Arrived in Dublin

Just what you want - an uneventful flight!  We arrived half hour early.
If I think back to 2005, this is a very different landing from that June day....when I felt all the uncertainties of a returning emigrant ....

An seú lá de mhí Mheithimh 2005

Arrival day in Dublin: Monday June 6, 2.

Here I am landed once again in Dublin. What a great word landed! It describes my search where is it that I need to land? Or be landed? This search began almost the day I left living in Ireland 45 years ago after my Father’s death. I exiled through Belfast on a hot summer day in June 1960. Today, I return in a different way from all my previous trips here. I am a pilgrim seeking what it means to live between two lands – idir dhá tire? Cén fad áith?

My plane was delayed leaving Chicago for over an hour and so I did not arrive in till after 10:00 a.m What is a little delay of an hour I have waited 45 years to do this! It is totally unclear to me what lessons I am to learn and what changes will occur in my life, what is only important at this point is that I start the journey.  

Standing waiting for my bags, I recall looking at my watch and seeing it was 10:30, and thinking what am I doing? What do I intend for this journey? .....

As I come out the doors, there is Matt waiting off to the side in a sea of other faces ...... Walking out to the car, I say to myself slow down and absorb what it means to connect. I have a huge cloak to remove – the whole mantle of “getting things done” and being productive. More lessons to come I feel or is it fear?

This July day in 2010,  I depart the plane with a knowing step, feeling I have come home again, all the while with one hand trying to get the mobile phone to work, and the other hand pulling my computer bag.   I am muttering to myself as the battery is dead, and I have steps to climb.  Walking along through the hallways, past the Vodaphone signs, down the stairs, and past the glass screen separating the US arrivals from the departing passengers already cleared for their returning US flight.  Silent, solemn looking, a collection of strangers waiting for their flight.  I am struck by the irishness of the faces through the lounge glass window.  Finally passport control, more muttering my Irish passport was nt processed in time for this trip.  I must go through the longer non-EU line.

Matt will be waiting (again) to pick me up, bless his heart.  It is a work day for him. He needs to head off to a meeting with Dublin Council before 11.   Our early landing will have helped if the luggage is off loaded in a timely way.   Not for me. Finally my big red bag come through at the very end - loosing precious time with the longer wait.  Loading up my baggage on to the cart, I make my way into the arrival hall, and immediately see Matt waving at me.  Off we go to the car parking lot.

The traffic is heavy as we head in the direction of Central Dublin and Parnell Square to the side street where Matt's office is located.  This side of Parnell Square is a mixture of old and new buildings, SinnFein, and Irish Trade Union offices line this side of Parnell Square. Matt's office is down a business lane with other new business model office sites, sort of incubator like buildings for artsy firms.  Leaving my bags to go separate ways, he to his meeeting and me to walk over to the Hugh Lane Gallery as I wait for his meeting to finish and meet up for lunch near the Half'penny Bridge.  There is an exhibition to see at the Hugh Lane: The Passion and the Politics - Sir John Lavery: The Salon Revisited

True to the pilgrim spirit, on my walk over to the Hugh Lane gallery, I meet a woman who is lost happening to be looking for the gallery.  We talk on the way over.  She is an artist from Longford.  For the next couple of hours I completely get lost in the exhibition almost missing the time to meet up with Matt for lunch.

Later in the afternoon,  we leave town for Ardee. It is pick up time at the creche...and time for play with Maeve and Connor till bedtime.  Sleep comes very easily later that evening after a full day of travelling, arriving and connecting.

Halseys of Southampton

July 27:   Taking advantage of the close proximity of Long Island on this visit,  Jon and I headed out to Southampton for the day.  We kept an eye also on the time for my departure to Dublin from JFK later that evening.

Southampton is the location where Thomas Halsey landed in 1640 and homesteaded this property in 1648 with his family.  Jon is descended from this Thomas Halsey.   The Halsey home is actually the oldest standing home in Long Island.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon with a wonderful creative woman Lori with the Southampton Historical Society pouring through Halsey archives.

We have promised ourselves to return here - in the meantime, Can't you see Jon as an early settler?

It is interesting to me that as I have come to embrace my Irish-American story it has opened me to embracing and valuing the stories of the "emigrant's story" in all of us.  I am so pleased that Jon is connecting with his ancestors.  It also seemed as if it was a coming home working with another Historical Society.

Sunday in NYC

July 25: On Sunday morning, we went to the 10:15 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral of St Patrick. Archbishop Dolan gave the homily - felt he missed a golden opportunity in his homily to affirm the persistence and resilience of today's Catholics in light of the abuse scandals - it would have been perfect to link the gospel with today's realities (Gospel Luke 11: 1 - 13).

After Mass

we headed off for the Emily Dickinson exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. We made a wonderful discovery while there that there is a sweet children's garden full of interesting and exciting adventures to explore.

While we were there there was a fierce storm sufficiently severe to shut down the gardens because of falling trees.

Passing Through New York - from home to home

When I wrote the heading "passing through New York" I thought of the hundreds of immigrants in the last century and before who "passed through New York", and here in 2010 I am going the other way stopping off on my way back home to Ireland.

What reflections do I have with this passing through. I realize that I am a person of two worlds - the american emigrant who has embraced what it means to be an american, who has settled and made this great country her homeland while still holding onto her irish emigrant status. I do realize what this means for me - I am a person of two worlds, an outsider in both.

Saturday Morning At Central Park's Toddler Playground

Now I have time to think back across the last ten days.

July 23: We travelled by car for the nine to ten hour car trip from Michigan to New York arriving at Jeff and Kendra's place in early afternoon. Kendra, Emmet, Jon and I headed to Harlem to take a tour of the affordable housing building where Kendra has spent much time and energy making it a reality. Jeff joined us for the tour. It makes me so proud of Kendra and the work she does to see this building.

July 24: Emmet, Mamo and Dadeo went to the Toddler playground at Central park while Jeff and Kendra took a break. Later in the afternoon we went to MOMA for an exhibition on climate change: Rising Currents (see exhibitions). On our way home, we stopped for a bite to eat at a Turkish restaurant.

Two weeks to go

Part of the pilgrim journey is staying true to the preparation. How is the spirit calling me this time to prepare?

There is this feeling, this way of knowing that the pilgrim journey of 2005 continues for me five years later in 2010. I am building upon what was started with my 2005 pilgrim journey.

My frequent journeys back and forth to Ireland since 2005 have been healing me, shaping me, preparing me, for the next stage of my life.