West Wind Blows 12jan2025

This program is kindly sponsored by Bounce Back Recycling. Say goodbye to your old furniture and mattress in an affordable, convenient and sustainable way. Call 091-760-877. Hello again and welcome to the West Wind Blows, a weekly program of poetry, song and story. My name is Kathleen Faherty and Bridie Cashin is producer and technician for the program. We'll begin the program with a poem by W.B. Yeats called The Fiddler of Dooney. The poem is read by Nicholas Bolton and it's from the CD The Life and Works of W.B. Yeats. The Fiddler of Dooney When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, folk dance like a wave of the sea. My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, my brother in Mocherebouie. I pass my brother and cousin, they read in their books of prayer, I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo Fair. When we come at the end of time to Peter sitting in state, he will smile on the three old spirits but call me first through the gate. For the good are always the merry, saved by an evil chance, and the merry love the fiddle and the merry love to dance. And when the folk there spy me, they will all come up to me with Here is the Fiddler of Dooney and dance like a wave of the sea. The Life and Works of W.B. Yeats I rambled in through Galway City, in a world of my own that I became. I came across a strange old man, playing his fiddle I became his fan. He played that fiddle as an old man could, he bore that tune and was covered in mud. I wondered why he was standing there, begging for money that didn't look fair. I approached this man with such great care, with a questioning mind that I don't care. He smiled towards me as I looked at him, and I knew in my heart he was like my father. I asked him why such a brilliant musician was here on the street, but all of a sudden he replied so kindly, I'm here for the poor. For eleven pints, lend your way out and win more. I wondered where he had learned to play, with such compassion I do have to say. I'd seen fine fiddlers, but never before had I heard fine music right from the poor. He said he had learned from the birds in the sky, songs each morning he played till he died. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. I played too quickly, and I can't go further. In the snow she'd play, the birds would tweet. Crowds like people gathered in the street, to hear him play. The war-time breeze, his love for music had been revealed. And I left that old man, I thanked him so much, for deep inside my heart he took such a manner that I wanted to celebrate the poor. I'd seen fine fiddlers, but never before had I heard fine music right from the poor. He said he had learned from the birds in the sky, songs each morning he played till he died. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. I played too quickly, and I can't go further. And I left that old man, I thanked him so much, for deep inside my heart he took such a manner that I wanted to celebrate the poor. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. I played too quickly, and I can't go further. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. He'd never to listen, just to breathe to the heavens. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. This is a beautiful poem about a beautiful moment, set in an ordinary situation. They came then, birds of every size, shape, colour. They came from the hedges and shrubs, from eaves and garden sheds, from the industrial estate, outlying fields, from Dubber Cross they came, and the ditches of the North Road. The sun comes out, and her aging father is now radiant in the morning sun, an old man made young again. What she sees is wonderful, a great blending of man and nature. It's a kind of sacrament being celebrated in a singless garden. In this ordinary city morning setting, something profound is happening, her father performing a visual prayer. He is a modern Saint Francis. This scene brings to mind the concluding lines of Coleridge's poem, The Ancient Mariner. He prayeth well who loveth well, both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best, all things both great and small. For the dear God who loveth us, he made and loveth all. So now back to Pauline Meehan reading her own poem, My Father Perceived as a Vision of Saint Francis. My Father Perceived as a Vision of Saint Francis is a poem written in the early 90s. It's dedicated to one of my teachers when I was a student at Trinity College Dublin and the poet and wonderful teacher Brendan Kennelly. It's set in the family home in Finglas in McKelvie Avenue and it remembers a time when I first realised that my father was mortal. My Father Perceived as a Vision of Saint Francis. It was the piebald horse in next door's garden frightened me out of a dream with her dawn whinny. I was back in the box room of the house, my brother's room now, full of ties and sweaters and secrets. Bottles chinked on the doorstep, the first bus pulled up to the stop, the rest of the house slept except for my father. I heard him rake the ash from the grate, plug in the kettle, hum a snatch of a tune, then he unlocked the back door and stepped out into the garden. Autumn was nearly done, the first frost whitened the slates of the estate. He was older than I had reckoned, his hair completely silver, and for the first time I saw the stoop of his shoulder, I saw that his leg was stiff, what he at so early and still stars in the west. They came then, birds of every size, shape, colour. They came from the hedges and shrubs, from eaves and garden sheds, from the industrial estate, outlying fields, from Dubber Cross they came and the ditches of the North Road. The garden was a pandemonium when my father threw up his hands and tossed the crumbs to the air. The sun cleared O'Reilly's chimney and he was suddenly radiant, a perfect vision of Saint Francis, made whole, made young again in a singless garden. Early each day to the fifth or the fourth, the little old bird would come. In her own special way to the people she called, come by my bed for a crumb. Come feed the little bird, show them you care, and you'll be glad if you do. The young ones are hungry, their heads are so bare, all it takes is tuppence from you. Feed the bird, tuppence the bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence the bag. Feed the bird, that's what she cried, while overhead a bird filled the sky. All around the people the same, the sound that she held so rare. Although you can't see, you can hear her cry, each time someone shows that he cares. Though her words are simple and few, listen, listen, she's calling to you. Feed the bird, tuppence the bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence the bag. Feed the bird, tuppence the bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence the bag. Though her words are simple and few, listen, listen, she's calling to you. Feed the bird, tuppence the bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence the bag. And that was Feed the Birds with Julie Andrews, from the film Mary Poppins. We have another poem by Paula Meehan, and it's called The Pattern. This poem reminds us of the tension that exists between one generation and the next. The new generation want to carve out their own course in life, which may be very different from the previous generation. In this poem, the poet's mother is the practical, industrious homemaker with all the domestic skills, caring for her children, cleaning and polishing, knitting and sewing. The title of the poem, The Pattern, has a dual meaning. The mother says, One of these days I must teach you to follow a pattern. That's the written instructions for knitting a garment. Her mother would also like to train her daughter and prepare her to follow in her footsteps. We see the conflict here, the frustration of the mother who needed a practical domesticated daughter. And the poem goes, Some say that's the fate of the eldest daughter. And of course, this poem is autobiographical. Paula Meehan is telling her own story. Meehan the dreamer is imagining a very different life pattern for herself, a much more exciting life of mystery and adventure. And she will try to escape the domestic world that her mother is planning for her. And the poem goes, I'd watch the liffy for hours, pulsing to the sea and the coming and going of ships, certain that one day it would carry me to Zanzibar, Bombay, the land of the Ethiopes. There's a scene at the end of the poem where the child Meehan, with outstretched hands, is holding the skein of wool while her mother winds it into balls. The fire throws shadows onto the ceiling and the child's imagination takes flight. The ceiling becomes the sky and the flickering shadows become flying kites. And the poem ends, If I swam like a kite too high amongst the shadows on the ceiling or flew like a fish in the pools of pulsing light, she'd reel me firmly home. She'd land me at her knees, tongues aflame in her dark eyes. She'd say, one of these days I must teach you to follow a pattern. And now we listen to a recording of Paula Meehan reading The Pattern. The Pattern was a poem that was started anyway in the early 80s and finished sometime maybe in the mid-80s. It concerns my mother and her legacy. I think it was an attempt to evaluate or come to terms with my mother's legacy, her particular pattern that was both handed on to me and rejected by me, really. Helena McCarty, cis, was dead by the age of 42. She was a ferociously intelligent woman. But I think eventually her life of poverty and illness, ill health, took a huge toll. The Pattern. Little has come down to me of hers a sewing machine, a wedding band, a clutch of photos, the sting of her hand across my face in one of our wars when we had grown bitter and apart. Some say that's the fate of the eldest daughter. I wish now she'd lasted till after I'd grown up. We might have made a new start as women without tags like mother, wife, sister, daughter, taking our chances from there. At 42 she headed for God knows where. I've never gone back to visit her grave. First she'd scrubbed the floor with sunlight soap an arm reach at a time. When her knees grew sore she'd break for a cup of tea then start again at the door with lavender polish. The smell would percolate back through the flat to us. Her brood banished to the bedroom. And as she buffed the wax to a high shine did she catch her own face coming clear? Did she net a glimmer of her true self? Did her mirror tell her what mine tells me? I have her shrug and go on knowing history has brought her to her knees. She'd call us in and let us skate around in our socks. We'd grow solemn as planets in an intricate orbit about her. She's bending over crimson cloth. The younger kids are long in bed. Late summer, cold enough for a fire she works by fading light to remake an old dress for me. It's first day back at school tomorrow. Pure lamb's wool, plenty of wear in it yet. You know I wore this when I went out with your da. I was supposed to be down in a friend's house. Your grand-da caught us at the corner. He dragged me in by the hair. It was long as yours then, in front of the whole street. He called your da every name under the sun. Corner boy, lout. I needn't tell you what he called me. He shoved my whole head under the kitchen tap took a scrubbing brush and carbolic soap and in ice-cold water he scrubbed every stick of lipstick and mascara off my face. Christ, but he was a right tyrant. Your grand-da, it'll be over my dead body. Anyone harms a hair of your head. She must have stayed up half the night to finish the dress. I found it airing at the fire. Three new copybooks on the table and a bright bronze nib. St. Christopher strung on a silver wire as if I were embarking on a perilous journey to uncharted realms. I wore that dress with little grace. To me it spelt poverty, the stigma of the second hand. I grew enough to pass it on by Christmas to the next in line. I was sizing up the world beyond our flat patch by patch, daily after school and fitting each surprising city street to city square to diamond. I'd watch the Liffey for hours pulsing to the sea and the coming and going of ships certain that one day it would carry me to Zanzibar, Bombay, the land of the Ethiopes. There's a photo of her taken in the Phoenix Park alone on a bench surrounded by roses as if she had been born to formal gardens. She stares out as if unaware that any human hand held the camera wrapped entirely in her own shadow. The world beyond her already a dream, already lost. She's eight months pregnant, her last child. Her steel needles sparked and clacked. The only other sound a settling coal or her sporadic mutter at a hard part in the pattern. She favoured sensible shades moss green, mustard beige. I dreamt a robe of a colour so pure it became a word. Sometimes I'd have to kneel an hour before her by the fire a skean around my outstretched hands while she rolled wool into balls. If I swam like a kite too high amongst the shadows on the ceiling or flew like a fish in the pools of pulsing light she'd reel me firmly home she'd land me at her knees tongues aflame in her dark eyes she'd say one of these days I must teach you to follow a pattern. Ring-a-ring-a-rosie at the light that blinds I remember Dublin city in the rare old times. Rays and songs and stories heroes of renown the past and tales and glories that once was Dublin town the hallowed halls and houses the haunting children's rhymes that once was Dublin city in the rare old times. Ring-a-ring-a-rosie at the light that blinds I remember Dublin city in the rare old times. My name, it is Sean Dancy as Dublin as could be born hard and laid in Timbuktu in a house that used to be I prayed I was a cougar lost out to redundancy like my house I fell to progress my trades and memories and I called to Peggy Dignan as pretty as you sleep a rogue and child of Mary from the rebel liberty I've lost her to a student chap with skin as black as coal when he took her off to Birmingham she took away my soul Ring-a-ring-a-rosie at the light that blinds I remember Dublin city in the rare old times. My ears have made me bitter the gargle dims me brain as Dublin keeps on changing and nothing seems the same the pillar and the mat have gone the pillar and the mat have gone the royal oven's pulled down as the grey and yielding concrete makes the city of my town Ring-a-ring-a-rosie at the light that blinds I remember Dublin city in the rare old times. Fare thee well sweet Anna Liffey I can no longer stay and watch the new glass cages that spring up along the quay my mind's too full of memories too old to hear new chimes I'm a part of what was Dublin in the rare old times. Ring-a-ring-a-rosie at the light that blinds I remember Dublin city in the rare old times. Ring-a-ring-a-rosie at the light that blinds I remember Dublin city And that was Luke Kelly with The Rare Old Times. We'll continue with two poems by the Kerry poet Brendan Kennelly who died at the age of 85 Eireaiste go raibh anam díolais He was born in Bennelongford, County Kerry in 1936 He was President of Modern Literature at Trinity College, Dublin until 2005 This poem, Begin, is a beautiful poem of positivity and mindfulness and this is a recording of Brendan Kennelly reading Begin Begin, begin again To the summoning birds, to the sight of light at the window Begin to the roar of morning traffic all along Pembroke Road Every beginning is a promise, born in light and dying in dark Determination and exultation of springtime flowering the way to work Begin to the pageant of queuing girls The arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal Bridges linking the past and future, old friends passing, though with us still Begin to the loneliness that cannot end Since it, perhaps, is what makes us begin Begin to wonder at unknown faces At crying birds in the sudden rain At branches stark in the willing sunlight At seagulls foraging for bread At couples sharing a sunny secret Alone, together, while making good Though we live in a world that dreams of ending That always seems about to give in Something that will not acknowledge conclusion Insists that we forever begin Morning has broken, like the first morning Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird Praise for the singing, praise for the morning Praise for them singing, fresh from the world Sweet the rain's new dawn, sunlit the air Like the first dewfall on the first grass Praise for a season of the garden Strong in completion when it is past Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning Born of the wildlife, even so brilliant Praise with laser, praise every morning God's recreation of a new day Morning has broken, like the first morning Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird Praise for the singing, praise for the morning Praise for them singing, fresh from the world And that was Denim of Glory, with Morning Has Broken Something that always engages me is the way in which we choose to remember our dead My father, a lovely easy-going man, God rest him, liked to begin each day with a dance on the kitchen floor after a few hours sleep, and he whistled as he danced, and this is how I like to remember him dancing and whistling in the morning, annoying everybody of course, but enjoying himself I see you dancing, father No sooner downstairs, after the night's rest, and in the door than you started to dance a step in the middle of the kitchen floor, and as you danced you whistled you made your own music, always in tune with yourself, well, nearly always anyway You're buried now in Lislockton Abbey, and whenever I think of you, I go back beyond the old man mind and body broken, to find the unbroken man It is the moment before the dance begins Your lips are enjoying themselves, whistling in air Whatever happens, or cannot happen, in the time I have to spare I see you dancing, father May the road rise to meet you May the wind be ever at your back May the sun shine warm upon your feet And the rain fall soft upon your feet And until we meet again May God hold you, may God hold you Ever in the palm of his hand May the road rise to meet you May the wind be ever at your back May the sun shine warm upon your feet And the rain fall soft upon your feet And until we meet again May God hold you, may God hold you Ever in the palm of his hand Ever in the palm of his hand The palm of his hand John Montague was sent back from New York in 1933 when he was four years of age to be reared by his two aunts in Garvey, County Tyrone. When his mother returned to live in County Tyrone some years later, she made no attempt to establish a mother-son relationship. This separation from his mother was traumatic for Montague. He felt rejected. The Locket is a sad poem. It's a lament for a relationship that should have been and never was and certainly never can be now that the poet's mother is dead. The Locket Sing a last song for the lady who has gone Fertile source of guilt and pain The worst birth in the annals of Brooklyn That was my cue to come on My first claim to fame Naturally she longed for a girl And all my infant curls of brown Couldn't excuse my double blunder Of coming out both the wrong sex and the wrong way round Not readily forgiven So you never nursed me And when all my father's songs Couldn't sweeten the lack of money When poverty comes through the door Love flies up the chimney Your favourite saying Then you gave me away Might never have known me If I had not cycled down to court you Like a young man Teasingly untying your apron Drinking by the fire Yarning of your wild young days Which didn't last long For you, lovely Molly The bell of your small town Landed up mournful and chill As the constant rain that lashes it Wound into your cocoon of pain Standing in that same hallway Don't come again, you say roughly I start to get fond of you, John And then you are up and gone The harsh logic of a forlorn woman Resigned to being alone And still Mysterious blessing I never knew Until you were gone That always around your neck You wore an over locket With a picture in it Of a child in Brooklyn Mona Lisa Mona Lisa men have named you You're so like the lady with the mystic smile Is it only cause you're lonely They have blamed you For that Mona Lisa strangeness In your smile Do you smile to tempt a lover Mona Lisa Or is this your way To hide a broken heart Many dreams Have been brought to your doorstep They just lie there And they die there Are you worn, are you real Mona Lisa Or just a cold and lonely Lovely work of art Do you smile to tempt a lover Mona Lisa Or is this your way To hide a broken heart Many dreams Have been brought to your doorstep Do you smile to tempt a lover Mona Lisa Or is this your way To hide a broken heart Many dreams Have been brought to your doorstep They just lie there And they die there Are you worn, are you real Mona Lisa Or just a cold and lonely Lovely work of art Mona Lisa Mona Lisa The Gift of Love Tom Kettle wrote this poem for his infant daughter Betty, whom he had never seen. Two days later, he was struck by a German bullet and died. The Gift of Love In wiser days, my darling Rosebud Blown to beauty proud as was your mother's prime In that desired, delayed, incredible time You'll ask why I abandoned you My own, and the dear breast that was your baby's throne to dice with death And oh, they'll give you rhyme and reason One will call the thing sublime And one to cry it in a knowing tone So here, while the mad guns curse overhead And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead Died not for flag, nor king, nor emperor But for a dream Born in a herdsman's shed And for the secret scripture of the poor But how do you do, young Willie McBride Do you mind that mighty teardown by your graveside And rest for a while, meet the warm summer sun I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen When you joined that red bobbin in 1915 I hope you died well, and I hope you died clean For young Willie McBride was a blowin' up scene Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they play the pipe lowly? Did they sound a dead march as they lowed you down? Did the band play the last Boston chorus? Did the pipe play the flower of the chorus? Did you leave there a wife or a sweetheart behind? In some faithful heart did your memory enshrine Although you died back in 1915 In some faithful heart are you forever nineteen Or are you a stranger without even a name Enclosed in forever behind a glass frame In an old photograph torn, battered and stained And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they play the pipe lowly? Did they sound a dead march as they lowed you down? Did the band play the last Boston chorus? Did the pipe play the flower of the fallen? The sun now it shines on the green fields of France There's a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance And look how the sun shines from under the clouds There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no gun firing now But here in this graveyard is still no man's land The countless white crosses standing in the sand To a man's mind indifference to his fellow man To a whole generation that were butchered and damned Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they play the pipe lowly? Did they sound a dead march as they lowed you down? Did the band play the last Boston chorus? Did the pipe play the flower of the fallen? Young Billy McBride I can't help wondering why Do all those who lie know why did they die? And did they believe when they answered the call? Did they really believe that this war would end the war? The sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain The killing and dying were all done in vain For young Billy McBride it all happened again And again and again and again and again Did they beat the drum slowly? Did they play the pipe lowly? Did they sound a dead march as they lowed you down? Did the band play the last Boston chorus? Did the pipe play the flower of the fallen? Thanks to Bridie who produced the programme and thank you at home for listening Please tune in again next week, same time to the West Wind Blows Bye for now We are coming to the end of this week's programme Thank you to everyone who was part of it Thank you to the members of the Technical Council Thank you to those listening at home Please tune in next week for another song from the West Wind Blows And until we meet again Bye for now Bye for now 760-877