Bog Bodies, The Troubles and the Irish Martyrdom Tradition

I grew up listening to traditional Irish ballads, many of which are a rather disturbing example of romanticizing Irish martyrdom and suicidal revolutionary activities.  Examine three stanzas from my childhood favorite, Boolavogue, which tells the story of the Irish Rebellion of 1798:

“Then Father Murphy from old Kilcormack/ Spurred up the rocks with a warning cry:/ ‘Arm, arm!’ he cried ‘For I’ve come to lead you;/ For Ireland’s freedom we fight or die’

“At Vinegar Hill, over the pleasant Slaney/ Our heroes vainly stood back to back/ And the Yeos at Tullow took Father Murphy/ And burnt his body upon the rack

“God grant you glory, brave Father Murphy/ And open heaven to all your men/ The cause that called you may call tomorrow/ In another fight for the Green again”

To give some context to the ballad’s lyrics, a priest (Father Murphy) leads a charge of Irish rebels against the onslaught of the English Yeomen (soldiers). The rebellion was sure to fail: the French, supposed to come to Ireland’s aid, had failed to land on the coast due to poor conditions; informants had warned the British of the rebellion and most of the leadership had been rounded up. The British, as a matter of policy, massacred any rebels.  The rebellion that so romantically promises eternal glory to Father Murphy’s men is essentially a suicide mission.

This is the same kind of disturbing Romanticism that appears in Yeats’ “Cathleen ni Houlihan”, and it is this sort of thing which made Yeats wonder if his writing caused men to go out and get shot.  Romanticism applied to violence and war often falls apart in the face of harsh reality.  Americans learned this lesson with the introduction of televised warfare during the Vietnam War: it was easy to view WWII are heroic and glorious, but it was harder to take that view of a war in which you could turn on your television and watch men’s heads being blown off.

This, I believe, is Heaney’s reaction to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.  Heaney looks at the hosts of Irish who have died for Ireland, from the ancient Bog Bodies, to the medieval and early modern rebellions against the British Crown, to the Easter Rising, to the Troubles.  He examines the romanticizing of the death and gore, and is deeply disturbed by the harsh reality of public bombings and paramilitary operations.

Contrast the lyrics to Boolavogue with Heaney’s poem, “Requiem for the Croppies”, also about the 1798 Rebellion and written on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising:
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley…
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp…
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching… on the hike…
We found new tactics happening each day:
We’d cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until… on Vinegar Hill… the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August… the barley grew up out of our grave.

The line “they buried us without shroud or coffin” seems to undercut any would-be heroism of the act: the “terraced thousands died”, the hillside “soaked in our broken wave” of blood, and the men were buried without ceremony or honor.  The agency is not given to the men: Heaney does not write “we fought and died for Ireland”; he describes the very land of Ireland soaking up the rebels’ blood  and spitting out barley in its place.  Death is part of the natural cycle in Ireland, and we see again Heaney’s familiar image of the bloodthirsty land that needs to be fed by dead bodies of Irish men.  This is the same image present in Heaney’s Bog Bodies poems: the peat bogs take in the dead bodies, and accept their sacrifice, and years later men like Heaney’s father cut the peat from the bog.

…and to conclude a rather somber post, here’s a beautiful rendition of Boolavogue by Anthony Kearns. Not as rustic as some more authentic versions, but still a really nice song, and the operatic style really draws attention to the romantic subject matter. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNHhQ1Q_nk

Yeats, Maude Gonne, and the Ideal Irish Woman

Yeats’ transitional phase is marked with his disillusionment with his muse, Maude Gonne. Yeats had previously idealized Maude, seeing her as the amazonian goddess, Cathleen ni Houlihan with “the walk of a queen”, an almost Aoife-like figure who was untouchable by Yeats because she was something noble and venerated.  This illusion was destroyed by the revelation of Maude’s affair with Lucien Millevoye, during which she had given birth to two illegitimate children. This revelation and its effect on Yeats’ poetry hints at his conception of the ideal woman, and his idealism in general: the ideal is never attainable, it is always just out of reach. But for women, this restricts their sexual liberty. The ideal woman is desired by men, but never obtained. Like the hallowed Cathleen ni Houlihan, who traps breathing woman beneath the weight of a symbol, this ideal of Yeats leaves real woman with an unsolvable quandary. As long as they are young and beautiful they can inspire desire: they are neither to let themselves be obtained, nor die old and wasted and alone.