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
Betwixt and Between with Irish Blessings Tours
It was a day when it was my job to escort our Canadian visitors around what is known locally as Yeats Country This is an area in Sligo and North Leitrim that inspired many of the poems written by Ireland’s great poet W. B. Yeats. On the way I played them the following song by a Sligo group. This song by The Waterboys is from their album Fisherman’s Blues and takes the lines from Yeats’ poem “The Stolen Child.”
An Irish Blessing on Valentine’s Day
May you know love
spark and flair of youth’s longing
May you know love
steady flame of the hearth
May you know love
glowing embers of age
May you know love
ever changing constant
May you know love
Happy Valentine’s Day. I’ve written this special blessing for Valentine’s Day. Whether you have a partner or are single this blessing applies to us all regardless of relationship status.
My partner, Tony Cuckson, and I have been interviewed by Cavan Community radio as part of a celebration of love during Valentine’s week. We have had the privilege to explore this subject for nearly three decades. We met at a Poetry Circle so we included many of our favourites as readings during the broadcast.
The second half of the programme includes Tony, who hails from Armagh, singing one of my favourites “My Lagan Love” as well as our own musings on how relationships go through cycles and experience rebirth. If you are a lover of Irish traditional songs be sure to listen to his rendition. I know I may be partial, but sometimes it just makes me shiver to hear him sing it.
It truly is a blessing to have been able to and to continue to journey on the greatest learning curve in life. Love also introduced me to Ireland and quite independently of any love for a man I also fell in love with this land, each contour, nook, cranny and cove of it.
Follow Us On