I’m not the biggest fan of Halloween. I don’t love dressing up. Also, I find Halloween parties kind of exhausting. You can conclude from this, already, I might not be the kind of fun you want around on Oct. 31st. But I’m very much looking forward to Samhain which, like all Irish words, is not pronounced phonetically. “SOW – in” is the correct way to say (mh is pronounced like a W in Irish), but honestly, no one here would be too offended if an American started pronouncing Irish words the wrong way. More like, they are amused when people try to say Irish words without knowing anything about the strange ways the words work.
The other day I was waiting for a bus in N. Strand, where I live, when a gang of tracksuit lads all marched past me, out in the middle of the road, dragging stolen bins full of wooden pallets. There was an older tracksuit lad in charge of them, shouting at them to pick up the pace before the Garda came. Apparently, Samhain bonfires are a big deal here. I, for one, am looking forward to the Samhain bonfires. See, I think that would have more impact on me…looking out over the North Wall and seeing illicit bonfires lighting up the sky in the Dublin dark. Fireworks exploding blue flowers and green shimmer over the canal.
My roommate had tried to get me excited about the prospect of a Halloween party in our apartment here, but truth be told, I didn’t share the excitement. This will be my first Samhain and I’d rather attend something like the Bram Stoker festival. He lived right around the corner from where I live now and finished Dracula right here in the Big Smoke (Dublin). The Irish love their famous writers and what good would his hard work be without a proper festival to celebrate?
When I walk into downtown, I pass by his old row house on the way in. I wonder if he got to enjoy the same tax free status on book sales that the modern day writer publishing in Ireland gets to enjoy? Probably not. It was a long time ago. And the Irish passed the law protecting artists from taxation in the late 60s. Quite a few European artists move here looking to save proceeds on their books or art this way. Irvine Welsh did it (well actually, it was for other reasons but he still signed up for the scheme and probably got well deserved money back in his pocket). Honestly, I think America should do this. Can you imagine? Encourage artists to make a living off of writing or painting?
Anyway, I got on the bus and rode all the way up north to Glasnevin cemetery. Brought the camera and spent a few hours slow walking around taking photos, making notes. The only disappointment was the fact that it was sunny and bright out. I had been hoping for dark skies, moody light, a spit or two of rain. Still, Ireland’s famous people are buried there so it’s a bit of a history lesson. You can learn a lot from a graveyard out here.
So most Irish rebels, thinkers, politicians are buried there, including (much to my surprise), Gerard Manley Hopkins, the genius who developed sprung rhythm. I always think of this one, God’s Grandeur, when I think of him. The way this first stanza hit me in college when I first encountered it is a memory I still associate with really wanting to be a writer. Give it a try out loud. It finds a power there.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oilCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soilIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
Shook foil. Ooze of oil. This was pretty groundbreaking stuff back in the Victorian era. There’s a lot in this stanza, but when I read it, it feels charged in its own right with the frictive energy of sounds rubbed together in close, tight ways…ways to discharge the energy of the sublime into a poem that continues on past his death, past our own brief beach bonfire fire flashes in the night. God, the sublime, that which is bigger than us.
I don’t care for the whole Higher Power verbiage some might use to politely denote the very fabric of the Universe. I’m not a believer in a god. But I do believe the universe is astonishing in what it contains and how it works (as if I knew, even, how it works) and I think we are merely a microscopic organism, burrowed into some other microscopic organism, riding parasitically on the skin of the infinite. Hopkins uses words to spark a poetic conflagration. Anyway, he passed at forty four in Dublin (he was English but also a Jesuit priest and then taught here in Dublin). So he is buried here.
Then I made my way to the Gravedigger’s pub for a pint after. It’s so named for the tradition the pub had of passing pints out the window balanced on shovels for the gravediggers as they finished (or perhaps even just continued) the task of making sure the dead were buried in their plots.
Spoke for an hour or so to a man about my age about the chemical composition of Guinness. How nitrogen works. How molecules work together to change the very nature of a substance. A brief rain came out of nowhere and a hard deluge found our heads, which we all enjoyed while crowded together on the small walkway in front of the pub (one must always drink outside of the Gravediggers, not so much inside), and the barkeep came out with his awning rod to extend the awning over our heads so no one would feel like they needed to seek shelter.
The man and I covered a wide variety of subjects. Matthew McConaughey, whom I learned is a great guy because he’s nice to everyone on the set (this guy’s friend works on films…or as he pronounced it…”fil-ems”). He also revealed to me the best car to have for the coming apocalypse, which is a Toyota Hilux. We spoke about Bill Gates (our man in this conversation has a special hatred for Bill Gates). The Trump slow motion indictment nightmare and whether or not he will end up in chains and what the fuck America, like, just arrest him already! Death, school, politics, and life in Ireland before 20 years ago and life in Dublin now. The rain began to soften. Then stopped altogether and the world looked clean. Shining. Shook out and hung to dry. The last of the day speared through the clouds and swept the cemetery one last time, then the evening dark set in. Then, he and I parted ways and after dinner, I was home in bed before ten. Early darkness is the tonic, right now, for my insomnia. Exhausting, it can be, spending a dreaded sunny day in the cemetery.
A dreaded sunny day and we drank by the cemetery gates…
“A dreaded sunny daySo let’s go where we’re happyAnd I meet you at the cemetry gates”