Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Irish Blessings Tours
I’ve been pondering the word blessings lately. While Irish blessings are a form of well wishing and protection what crossed my mind was that phrase “Count your blessings.” If I were to count my Irish blessings this St. Patrick’s Day I can start with the break of day.
My first blessing is that cup of tea brought to me in bed by my partner. Then when we draw the curtains open on this sunny morning I feast my eyes on a panorama that begins in county Cavan. The next hillside is in Leitrim where my friend’s polytunnel is glimmering a reflection. On the far horizon I see the wind turbines on Arigna Mountain in County Roscommon. When I moved into the office to type this blog my eyes are drawn to the birds – finches, blue tits, siskins and robins – who are gathering at the bird feeder outside the office window. Then a red squirrel decides to get into the mix and skittishly scampers and leaps branches to get to the peanut feeder. When the red squirrel eats it looks like it is saying grace.
On Ireland’s national holiday we celebrate with parades full of traditional music and dancing, a bit of political satire and a Lenten let up. Virtually every every little town in Leitrim – from the county seat in Carrick on Shannon to Dromahair, Mohill to Manorhamilton and plenty of places in between- will be having a parade. The border towns of Blacklion in Cavan and Belcoo in Fermanagh will join forces on the bridge that is their boundary to celebrate the day. Enniskillen will have mummers. St. Patrick’s seat will be having a parade and a busking competition as well as the Bard of Armagh challenge.
I wish everyone well on this St. Patrick’s Day. Dance a bit, enjoy music, sing a song, revel is springtime whatever its manifestations wherever you live. Kick up you heels like the Eddie Fitz’s lambs down the road.
But in the midst of all this convivial craic I’m saying my Irish blessings like beads. Yeats call this island the “holy land of Ireland” and blessings recall all that is sacred. I’ll share this poem I wrote which is a way of counting the blessings I see from my own Irish front door. That door is always open and there is a welcome.
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
The heat of the sun warming stone
The milky glare at full moon
The vibrant glints of planet and star
As the plough furrows the night sky
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
One New Year’s morning I looked up
Called by the harsh honking of four
Bewick’s swans in formation
Gliding in to land on Lough Moneen
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
John O’Rourke’s cows now graze in
The flat fold of field Paddy’s sheep
Yielded as they moved from
Winter pasture to lambing barn
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
The willow quenches itself on our acre
Drinking deeply from sodden peat
An oak nurtured from an acorn now leafs tall
While the ash as usual is the last to peek
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
The cats scratch at the dandelions
The dogs doze in a patch of sun
The cuckoo immigrates each April
The bee feasts on the nectar of apple blossom
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
Gaudy gorse blazes on the hillside
Meadowsweet shrouds the acre in bridal lace
Lady’s mantle does her juju in the border
Blood from bramble thorn bears sweet berry
Standing on my door sill surrounded by the sacred
They call this ‘the briary place’
The root system curls around my ankles
So that now I enter into the world
Awake to this bounty and beauty
© Bee Smith 2011
Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Ireland
I get bemused by the green beer, dyed rivers and fountains on St. Patrick’s Day. On the first count I think most indigenous Irish think that is a crime against good beer. On the last two counts I wonder what those dyes are doing for the health of the salmon of wisdom.
While others think leprechauns for Ireland, in Ireland we tend to revere the fairies. Our parades are generally full of political satire, which goes right back to the bardic tradition of ancient Ireland. Plenty of young ones sport false rears sporting ‘Pogue Mahone’ – roughly and more politely translated as smooch here.
There have been moves to encourage people to wear a snake on St. Patrick’s Day as a way to reclaim the druidic past. You see adders(snakes) were never native to Ireland. Ireland never has had a snake species. Not even a garden variety. It is hypothesised that the ‘snakes’ were actually the Druids that the conversion to Christianity supplanted with Patrick’s mission to Ireland.
Alternatively, anti-fracking activists have declared St. Patrick’s Day an international day of action to prevent hydraulic fracturing of shale gas in Ireland’s least spoiled landscape in the Lough Allen and Clare Basins. Given the watery nature of the land experiences elsewhere in the world have raised anxieties at home about the dangers of water pollution and worse. So in Carrick on Shannon they will be sporting black shamrocks at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade to alert the wider public to the dangers and asking people to contact TDs (deputies in the Dáil or Irish Parliament) and county councillors to prevent this happening in both the Republic and Northern Ireland.
“Don’t Frack with the Fairies”
Image copyright Helga Martinez
Here is rural Ireland it is the traditional day to set your spuds on St. Patrick’s Day. That is exactly what I intend to be doing this year. It’s warm enough even for our frost pocket prone field to chance the first earlies. There are plenty of parades going on too – we are spoiled for choice between our local one, another five miles away that is cross border between Belcoo and Blacklion. Heading out to the big towns around twenty miles away we could attend Carrick on Shannon or Enniskillen.
For me, on St. Patrick’s Day I think about the tenets of Celtic Spirituality – that of seeing God in nature, giving hospitality, celebrating with music and poetry, nurturing soul friendships. So I’ll be out in the garden setting spuds and planting some memorial plants since this St. Patrick’s Day marks the 50th anniversary of the day my father was buried. I’ll plant two things for both my parents. So first thing is to get to the garden centre early and then wield the spade.
Over this national holiday weekend we will join in the Thur Mountain celebrations organised by Glenfarne Community Development. Glenfarne is just seven miles over the Boleybrack from us. They are having three kinds of walk to appeal to all classes of walker from the hardcore hillwalkers, to the staunch ramblers right down to the dog strollers. We’ll be in the latter category. But all the walking groups will gather in the Rainbow Ballroom of Romance for some tea and craic after doing all that healthful activity.
In the evening we get to have the music and poetry and some more hospitality. We are having a birthday celebration and that is the cue for conviviality, homemade music, singing and reciting or reading poems. There will also be homemade cake!
But let me leave you with a favourite Irish blessing attributed to St. Patrick.
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.
Beir Bua (Best Wishes)
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Bee Smith created Irish Blessings Tours to serve travelers to Ireland who want the unique and inspirational packaged for their group’s desires and needs. Bee seeks the source to manifest your dream Irish vacation according to your budget and time scale. She has a special interest in Fairy folklore, Celtic Spirituality and the Natural Heritage of northwestern Ireland and Northern Ireland. In 2011 Bee became one of the first trained tour guides that act at ambassadors for the UNESCO designated Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark. Send her your dreams for your Ireland vacation package to bee@irishblessingstours.com.
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