A St. Patrick’s Day Toast to Great Irish Poets

The people of Ireland recently selected Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney’s poem “When All The Others Were Away at Mass” as Ireland’s favorite poem of the last 100 years.

Seamus Heaney

The poem (read it below), selected through a poll conducted by Ireland’s national broadcasting company, comes from Heaney’s book, “The Haw Lantern,” which Heaney described as “a small light for small people.”

“That’s the beauty of his poetry: he always wrote on a human scale,” says English professor Joe Kelly, an expert in modern Irish literature. “Think of walking the streets of Charleston versus walking the streets of Washington, D. C., and you’ll get an idea of what that means. Nothing monumental: doors the right size for people to walk through, and gardens for a grandfather’s shovel to dig in the gravelly ground.”

Kelly has even had the honor of raising a pint with Heaney, who died in 2013. “Heaney bought me a pint of Guinness in 1987, when I was a grad student,” recalls Kelly. “He signed the journals of my own students when they met him in 2009. Both occasions were the Yeats Summer School held each August in Sligo, Ireland.”

Heaney’s poem emerged as the most loved from among thousands of nominations – testament to the importance of poetry to the Irish people.

Read an article in the Irish Times about the selection of Heaney’s poem.

Joe Kelly

“We should all praise the Irish: where else would you find the people voting on a national poem?” says Kelly. “They picked an Irishman trying his hand at an Italian sonnet! (Of course if couldn’t be an English sonnet.) And what other country would elect a poem about mother’s love? No battles, no victories, no flags.”

And while Kelly believes the selection of Heaney’s poem is a good choice, his own personal favorite Irish poem is William Butler Yeats’ “Who Goes with Fergus?” (read it below)

“Fergus was a King of Ulster who gave up his crown to live in the woods like a druid and know what druids know,” Kelly says. “Love here is romantic, not motherly, but both poems talk of its bitter mystery, how feeble are hopes and dreams compared to the person sitting with you drinking her coffee. I’ve taught this poem for 23 years, and I never miss a chance to have my students read it aloud, just for the pleasure of hearing the words walk up and down the aisles of their desks.”

“When All The Others Were Away at Mass”

By Seamus Heaney

When all the others were away at Mass

I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.

They broke the silence, let fall one by one

Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:

Cold comforts set between us, things to share

Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.

And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes

From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside

Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying

And some were responding and some crying

I remembered her head bent towards my head,

Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives–

Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

“Who Goes with Fergus?”

By William Butler Yeats

Who will go drive with Fergus now,

And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,

And dance upon the level shore?

Young man, life up your russet brow,

And lift your tender eyelids, maid,

And brood on hopes and fear no more.

And no more turn aside and brood

Upon love’s bitter mystery;

For Fergus rules the brazen cars,

And rules the shadows of the wood,

And the white breast of the dim sea

And all dishevelled wandering stars.