Wicklow’s Wonderful Coast – 17

From Brittas Bay to Arklow the road is narrow and winding. Its bleak beauty is punctuated by a few unvisited beaches. Where the outskirts of Arklow dip their extremities in the tide, there’s a caravan park and the Arklow Bay Hotel. This boasts ninety rooms and a leisure club. The duck pond along its eastern edge provides a pleasant walk.

The Kynoch Munitions Factory stood here from 1895 until the end of the Great War and employed three thousand people. There was a hospital on site, a necessary addition given the nature of the work. The worst accident occurred during the war when twenty seven workers died in an explosion. A shell fired from a German submarine was suspected, but unproven.

The hospital remained, under public ownership, until 1961. It was used under Dr Noel Browne’s scheme to eradicate TB in the fifties before it was sold for the hotel development. The duck pond had been a reservoir for the factory and was later used as a boating lake. Having fallen into disuse it was renewed as a picturesque lake and bird sanctuary.

The town of Arklow has a population of over thirteen thousand people. Like Wicklow, the name is Viking in origin. The Irish name, an tInbhear Mor, means Big Estuary. The estuary is formed by the Avoca River. The Avonmore and the Avonbeg are the source rivers. The big river and the small. The Avonmore rises in Glendalough, the Avonbeg in Glenmalure. They join at the Meeting of the Waters and become the Avoca. The name is taken from Ptolemy’s Geography. On his map of the known world there’s a rough depiction of Ireland, Ivernia. The Ovoka flowing east seems approximate to Arklow’s river. Claudius Ptolemy from Alexandria, never visited Ireland and his map is based on travellers’ tales, allied to his own calculations. His graphic depiction is not far off, considering the technology of the day, almost two thousand years ago. I wouldn’t use it for satnav, and the Avoca could, variously, be the Vartry or the Liffey. But here it is, and here it stays.

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet

As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet

Oh the last rays of feeling and life must depart

Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart

Thomas Moore (1779 – 1852) evokes a valley in more romantic times. He wrote it in the summer of 1807, while on an excursion with friends. The Avoca would become known as a copper mining country, and the mining industry was a significant feature of the valley from the Meetings to the sea. The railway follows the course of the river after its detour from the coast to Rathdrum and on through the Meetings and Woodenbridge returning to the coast again at Arklow.

The Bridgewater Centre looms over the estuary. Built in 2007 it is a major shopping centre with apartments. It is in startlingly modern contrast to much of the urban fabric. Arklow Maritime Museum is located in the Bridgewater Centre with models, plans, artefacts and eight paintings by Ruben Chappell. It is well worth a visit to get the feel of the maritime heritage of Arklow. Founded by the Vikings, it remained a seafaring town, with fishing and shipbuilding its key industries for centuries as a port for trade and fishing.

While the most of the town lies across the bridge on the south bank of the Avoca, Ferrybank on the north shore of the river takes its name from times before the bridge was built. The first timber structure was constructed in the reign of King William, in 1690. An eighteen arch stone bridge was built by Andrew Noble in 1756; a nineteenth arch was added a decade later.  

There was no bridge when Cromwell took the surrender of the town in 1649 during the War of the Three Kingdoms. In taking the ferry, Cromwell was surprised to learn that the ferryman was also called Cromwell. The family had come to Arklow in the previous century and were not kin. Cromwell offered him reward, but Richard Cromwell, the ferryman, declined, other than that he be left in charge of his ferry operation. Cromwell granted the request and noted: a poor man I found you and a poor man I’ll leave you.

It took Cromwell three days to get his army across. The journey is a bit quicker now. A bit. The Nineteen Arches makes for one of the longest arched bridges in the country, and one of the longest bridge traffic jams too. The bridge terminates at a t junction which is impossibly narrow and awkward for modern traffic.

Turn left and the town centre car park is next right at Laffins Lane. But I was not amused, both machines were out of order and I had to cadge a half hour from a departing motorist. Beside the carpark is a small walled enclave making a contemplative park surrounding an ancient graveyard. This was once part of the Dominican Abbey which is long gone. The Main Street is nearby, curving and climbing uphill from its junction with the bridge. There are shops and bars and cafe’s but almost all are shut in these terrible times. Even pre Covid, the town was suffering, and a lot of commerce had shifted north to the Bridgewater. The town is in a sorry state. Many buildings, old and modern are falling into ruin

Van Morrison’s 1974 song, Streets of Arklow, paints a more positive picture. Morrison had lived in the States since 1967, but took a three week vacation in Ireland in 1973. This resulted in Veedon Fleece, where Morrison rediscovered his cultural heritage, which would become a thread woven through his future work.

And as we walked

Through the streets of Arklow

Oh the color

Of the day wore on

And our heads

Were filled with poetry

And the morning

A-comin’ on to dawn

It’s difficult to see just what it was that inspired Morrison’s effusive description. There are times looking at a heron stalk the shores of the Avoca, or catching the fading skyline at sunset, or caught in the salt and jangling air of the harbour, that possibilities for poetry are suggested. But Arklow’s state echoes its tortured years of battles and burnings, the slow dereliction of departing industry. 

A gap in the buildings on the north side of the Main Street has been laid out as a public park. This was once a cemetery and the slabs mounted to the side date back to 1650. There’s a bandstand and the park overlooks the river. It’s all in poor repair and could do with sensitive development, and a return of commerce to Main Street. Adjacent buildings are derelict, and little advantage is taken of the river view.

The top of Main Street opens out into a plaza known as the Parade Ground. The imposing neo-classical Catholic Church dominates the rising ground before us. St Mary and St Peter was designed by Patrick Byrne in the Renaissance style. It is pinned to the streetscape by a front tower with a copper domed roof. Granite blocks were shipped from Dun Laoghaire by Arklow’s fishing fleet and building was completed in 1861.

Facing the church the Courthouse is an austere building from 1844, and has also functioned as the town hall. In the grounds are remnants of the ancient castle. After the Norman invasion, Henry II granted the town to Theobald FitzWalter, who became the King’s first Butler in Ireland. He built Arklow Castle on this commanding height above the Avoca. His successors were created Earls of Ormond in the fourteenth century. Their castles pepper the south east, Kilkenny and Carrick-on-Suir being the most noted.

James Butler, first Duke of Ormond, was a key protagonist against Cromwell for both the Cavaliers and the Irish Confederacy. Though vanquished by the Commonwealth, he hid out in France with the King and returned to prominence following the Restoration. Resting over in Arklow, Cromwell had no need to lay waste the town. But, finding the castle empty and mindful of its association with his enemy, and to alleviate the tedium no doubt, turned his cannon on it. All that remains now being a ruined tower and a wall.

A century and a half later, Arklow witnessed some serious slaughter. In June 1798, with Wexford in their hands, the United Irishmen advanced north. The bridge was the prize, giving access towards Dublin. The rebels numbered ten thousand, but most were pike men, and they were decimated by the well armed defenders and forced into retreat. To commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Arklow a monument was erected by the townsfolk outside the church. This statue features Fr Michael Murphy, a leader of the Wexford insurgents who died in the battle. 

The Parade Ground takes its name from the military barracks which was built nearby. after the castle’s destruction in 1650. It was burned down in the civil war and demolished in the 1930s to make way for a dancehall, comely maidens and all. The Ormonde Cinema preserved memory of Arklow’s lost royalty for a time, but the silver screen was rusting by the end of the eighties and like so many cinemas around Ireland fell into disuse. While preserved for its distinctive 1930s architecture it has fallen into ruin.

The Gothic spire of Saint Saviour’s Church marks the far end of town. You’re bound for Wexford. There’s still a short stretch of coast culminating in Clogga Strand, which we’ll save for another day.

Perhaps better times are at hand. There are plans for development of the Parade Ground to create an attractive civic plaza. The new library on Main Street is an impressive building and gives hope for the recovery of the town centre. Completed in 2015 the sharp modernist structure hosts state of the art facilities in an award winning design by Coady architects. Perhaps Van might have been right in his vision after all.

And as we walked

Through the streets of Arklow

And gay perfusion

In God’s green land

And the gypsy’s rode

With their hearts on fire

They say “we love to wander”

“Lord, we love to roam…”

Brittas Bay

• 

South of Wicklow Town, the coastline boasts some magnificent sandy beaches. Whether you call these gold or silver strands, there’s no arguing that they exert a strong pull on people. Nothing defines the notion of escape from the workaday world like a summer day on a sun soaked beach. Indeed, in all sorts of weather, throughout the year, there’s a particular feeling of release to be had on the shoreline, solo or duet, amongst a full ensemble of friends, or strangers too. 

Something is released into our souls and we are at one; maybe even at one with the universe. ‘T’were not ever thus. Once the sea spelt danger, and it took the Romantic era around the early nineteenth century, for the beneficial aspects of the sea to be appreciated: healthy, inspirational, spiritually uplifting, and fun.

• 

At this time of year we make our annual pilgrimage to Brittas Bay. Thanks to our good friends, Maria and Larry, we have the use of a mobile in the dunes, between river and sea. I am inspired to think of Thomas Moore, again, and his ode to friendship, The Vale of Avoca. 

Sweet Vale of Avoca how calm could I rest,

In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best,

Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,

And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

.

The Avoca is another Wicklow gem, in a county where we’re spoiled for choice. Brittas Bay is a slice of heaven from the limbo where we wait. The sea can be wild or welcoming, or both together. At the far north of the bay, a small river enters the sea beneath the rocky promontory. This river winds along the western edge of Staunton’s site, going right past the back door of where we stay. In its short span it holds a wonderful variety of scenery, from lush woodland to the parched spectacle of high sand dunes. At its estuary it is sheer perfection, and I am forever new to its beauty each time I see it.

Sunlight segues into evening, and then heaven releases its stars into the night. Life goes on, in darkness and in dark times. And fun too. When I hear music from neighbouring homes, and as we make it ourselves, they hold an echo of nights gone by. Bonfires ablaze, barbecue aglow, cans and laughs to share with friends. A mixture of the real and imaginary; and the beat going on.

Somehow, the concept of limbo rock is tied up with all the aspects of beach lore. Sun drenched and sand blasted, surfs up and a bevy of California Girls, drinking the zombie from the cocoa shell, and as smoke billows into the night, the sinuous sounds of guitar and bongos beget the need to dance, The big thing is, in this company: how low can you go.

Once, a long time ago, I was wingman for a dj friend at a disco in Crumlin’s parish hall. We were in our early teens and our advanced taste in Rock, providing such excellent fare as Cream, Taste and local heroes Thin Lizzy, was not sufficiently chart orientated for the small gaggle of teenage girls who had gathered around the floor, and were beginning to drift away. We were dying a death when the old chaw doing security had a word in our ears. “Listen, I thought yous were struggling, like. So, I popped home to get some music, thought yis might use it, spark things up a bit.” And there it was: one record. Count it. One. 

Well, DJ Vin put it on, if reluctantly. And you know how it goes:

Get yourself a limbo girl

Give that chic a limbo whirl

There’s a limbo moon above

You will fall in limbo love

Jack be limbo, Jack be quick

Jack go unda limbo stick

All around the limbo clock

Hey, let’s do the limbo rock

Limbo Rock, penned by Jan Sheldon and Billy Strange, was a hit for Chubby Checker in 1962. Checker’s 1960 single The Twist, written by Hank Ballard, initiated the dance craze which became emblematic of the swinging sixties, and beyond. Checker was born Ernest Evans, his stage name is a pun on Fats Domino whom he impersonated. 

Don’t move that limbo bar

You’ll be a limbo star

How low can you go

Bruges – 3, To the Lake of Love.

The distinctive Gothic shape of the Boniface Bridge is quietly emblematic of Bruges, the city of reflection. It embodies that melancholy meditation of memory and love, that perfect moment when all time flows through an ostensible cusp, briefly and sharply experienced. Just beyond, the Church of Our Lady soars heavenward. Its one hundred and fifteen metre brick spire is the second tallest in the world. The church dates back to the thirteenth century and took two centuries to complete, encompassing a variety of styles from Gothic to Baroque.In the sixteenth century Our Lady’s acquired a statue by Michelangelo, Madonna and Child, a rare example of the artist’s work travelling beyond his homeland during his lifetime.

Bruges is a storybook of bridges and towers. After the initial frenzy of photography, the city re-establishes its quiet beauty on the soul. You find yourself within a photograph that is centuries old, enduring and subtly changing, captivating and offering profound release. Beyond the Boniface Bridge, and heading south, the crowds thin somewhat. 

The Canal shimmies away from the quaysides and is bordered by the serene Beguinage. The Beguinage was a walled area within the city which offered a retreat for the Beguines, a lay sisterhood founded in 1245. These lived and dressed as nuns but did not take the vows, so they could return to the real world at any time.This location was crucial in Bruges La Morte. The cover features an illustration of the bridge. Floating on the waters that flow beneath, the figure of Hugue’s late wife is modelled on John Everett Millais’s Ophelia. It was drawn by Fernand Khnopff, whose work Secret Reflection hangs at the Groeninge Museum. Khnopff was a leading Symbolist painter who spent his childhood in Bruges. The mystique of the floating city would inform his later work which influenced the Belgian Surrealists, Rene Magritte and Paul Delveaux.

The Beguines are suggested in the role played by Jane as she snares Hugue’s desire when he attends a performance of Robert the Devil. Jane dances the lead role in a sequence known as the Ballet of the Nuns. Robert the Devil is an actual Opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, with a libretto by Eugene Scribe. It was a triumph of the visual power of stagesetting when first performed in Paris in 1831. The story gives a nod to the historical character, Robert the Magnificent of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, who was known by some as the Son of the Devil. Jane plays the role of Abbess Helena who returns to life with her nuns and arise from the graveyard. They divest themselves of their habits and, shaking off the dust of death, dance a celebration of the physical joys of life. Scandalous, and sensational, the Ballet of the Nuns was a huge influence on the development of dance, transcending its classical constraints to push towards the more sensual artform of modern times.

Rodenbach adapted his novel for the stage and it received a German translation by Siegfried Trebitsch called Die Stille Stadt, the Silent City. Trebitsch was a friend of Julius Korngold and the two discussed the potential of turning the story into an opera. Julius’s son, Erich, in his early twenties was enthusiastic about the project, collaborating with his father on the libretto under the pseudonym Paul Schott. He composed the opera giving it the title Die tote Stadt, the Dead City. In this version, the melodramatic and crazed climax occurs within a dream, softening its impact.

The original German title brings to my mind Thomas Moore’s melancholy Oft in the Stilly Night. Where Moore’s Vale of Avoca puts friendship at the centre of happiness, conjuring a perfect day in an idyllic landscape, Oft in the Stilly Night is melancholic, a lonesome voice leaking into the darkness.

Oft in the stilly night, ere slumber’s chains have bound me,

fond memory brings the light of other days around me.

Like Hugue, or any solo traveller at that certain moment of reflection, the environment is a multifaceted construct, built of memories and moods as much as its physical components. Within the crowds and chaos of the city there will be an isolated being, channeling the ancient history of the space throughout time, and through the prism of their own memory.

The smiles the tears of boyhood’s years,

the words of love then spoken,

the eyes that shone now dimmed and gone,

the cheerful hearts now broken.

Into these vacuums of darkness and solitude there is a welcoming space for those manifestations of the Muse, for music, poetry and art. For Rodenbach, art was a kind of religion.

Thus in the stilly night ere slumber’s chains hath bound me,

sad memory brings the light of other days around me.

Bruges, being a city of reflections, can quickly shift. From melancholy to gaiety, it’s seldom more than a step away from a changing atmosphere. Ancient and beautiful, but also busy. Visitors cloud its atom like electrons, a dusty swirl by boat or boot or horse and cart. I balance precariously at a sidewalk bar, and the horses turning their carriages pass close enough to touch. The crowded small square is festooned with art and crafts and above it all the teetering spires of the sky.

But, you can always find a place to be alone, whatever timeframe you inhabit. Further along, lies the Minnewater, a regular artificial lake where the waters feeding the canal system lie waiting, a few metres above the city waterways. The Minnewater is known as the Lake of Love. Passing the lock gatehouse is to enter a calmer sphere. A quiet park enfolds the lake with a relaxed residential area surrounding that and the adjacent Beguinage. At the far end there is the Lovers Bridge, though all bridges in Bruges are magnets for lovers. This one is named for the doomed lovers of myth, the beautiful young Minna and Stromberg, a warrior of a rival tribe. It is a variant of Romeo and Juliet. Of love and death. Standing guard is the Powder Tower, part of the old city’s outer fortifications. 

Returning to the park, modern music beckons me to the water where a quartet of hedonists have established their own milieu and are dancing in a sea of ganja mist. In the quiet of the park once more, a hostelry looms out of the trees. In the afternoon heat and the deserted ambience, I feel I may have stumbled on the source of the Golden Fountainhead. The bar is to the rear of the Gothic building, where a matronly woman serves me. I take my beer onto the extensive and deserted terrace and sit a while contemplating the stillness of the waters. Minnewater, my solo pastime, a quiet conversation with an intelligent shade of the colour blue.

Walkinstown’s Musical Roads

 

Our Lady of the Assumption

Dublin is a musical city, a storm of sounds. I grew up on the edge of this storm system, in Walkinstown’s Musical Estate, also known as the Melodies. Here, the roads commemorate eighteen musicians and composers, either Irish or connected to Ireland, including: John McCormack, Thomas Moore, Michael Balfe, John Field, Percy French, Edward Bunting and John Dowland.

 Those names came from the perspective of 1940s planners, imagining the songs new residents would sing, gathered in kitchens and living rooms with a bottle of stout or two, and a Woodbine twixt finger and thumb. I can still hear those serenades with their echoes of John McCormack and the recordings of Brendan O’Dowda, Bridie Gallagher and Joe Locke blaring from Radio Eireann on the wireless. 

Ireland’s musical tradition is something we like to flaunt. It was not always so. Myles na Gopaleen (Brian O’Nolan) complained mid century of “this nation of befuddled paddies, whose sole musical tradition is bound up with blind harpers, tramps with home made fiddles, Handel in Fish-handel street, John McCormack praising our airport and no street in the whole capital named after John Field.” There is in fact, since Walkinstown obliged in the later forties. Field Avenue is a small cul de sac terminating around a green at the northwestern edge of the estate where Walkinstown touches Drimnagh.

Field was born in Dublin in 1782 and made his concert debut at the age of nine. Moving to London in 1793 he became one of the renowned concert pianists of his day. Field travelled to St Petersburg, the ultra modern metropolis of its time, the pinnacle of the cultural world. His fame allowed him live the lavish lifestyle of the Rock Star, as we might put it today. He took up residence in Moscow where he died in 1837.

A painted nocturne.

As a composer Field is remembered for developing the Nocturne. The Nocturne marks a specific shift in composition where the artist explores the light within the darkness. Characteristically meditative, with a moody melody overlaid on a distinctive arpeggio, it takes the listener into a spiritual landscape. Frederic Chopin was a master of the form, becoming its most famous exponent. Like all art, it developed over time into quite different things. James MacNell Whistler’s painted Nocturnes caused outrage at the Fin de Siecle. Now it would seem absurd for any artist in any field not to dally with the Muse after sunset. One imagines Field’s nocturnal inspirations were rather seasonal. St Petersburg’s summers are the White Nights, the sun barely setting and the sky a permanent bell of startling northern hues. Throughout winter, the world’s northernmost great city is clad in a different whiteness, veils of snow and ice turning everything into a winter wonderland.

Bunting Road

I was raised on Bunting Road, the bisecting avenue of Walkinstown’s Musical Estate. Originally the road didn’t reach Crumlin. From near Walkinstown Cross it runs north, but stopped dead at the ditch bordering Mooney’s Field. As kids, we’d haunt the hedges there, sending up a regular coyote like refrain of the farmer’s name. Moo-oo-ney! Moo-oo-ney! The poor man died at last, leaving the field free for development as playing pitches, while the road pushed through to Crumlin around 1970.

Edward Bunting may seem obscure these days. Yet, as the estate itself flows from Bunting, so does our rich repertoire of Irish music. Born in Belfast in 1773, he was a classically trained organist. By chance he was given the task of recording the music of Belfast’s Harp Festival in 1792. He collected songs directly from the harpists, leading to the publication in three volumes of his book: The Ancient Music of Ireland. This became the definitive repository of Irish music, music which might well have been lost. Bunting helped arrest the decline of the harp as instrument and symbol, and it waxed once more as an icon for the country, synonymous with the very concept of Irishness. Thomas Moore’s The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls is prefigured here. 

Harty Avenue

 Before the short cul de sac leading to Mooney’s field, Bunting passes Harty Avenue, named for composer Hamilton Harty (1879 – 1941). Born in Ulster, he came to live in Bray, his mother’s hometown, where he was church organist. Taking advantage of the excellent rail service to visit Dublin, he came under the influence of Michele Esposito at the Royal Irish Academy. In 1901 he moved to England and became a successful conductor, ultimately with the London Symphony Orchestra in the 1930s. His last composition was the symphonic poem, the Children of Lir.

Harty Avenue is a short road leading west to Thomas Moore Road. It was Moore who made flesh of Bunting’s bones, and came to be seen as the Bard of Ireland.He was born in Dublin in 1779, in Aungier Street, that edgy thoroughfare flowing south of Temple Bar from George’s Street to Camden Street. Today it blossoms with music venues and Moore’s birthplace is now occupied byJJ Smyth’s Blues Bar.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

Though a Catholic, Moore studied at Trinity College before going to London to study law. As an undergraduate he became friends with Robert Emmett although he remained remote from Emmett’s revolutionary group, The United Irishmen. At times he was moved to rabble-rousing polemic in prose and ballad, to the extent that Emmett was forced to tell him to dial it down, such stances garnering unwelcome attention. For the most part, and increasingly in later life, he was more disposed towards constitutional nationalism than armed revolt.

At Trinity, he was introduced to the work of Edward Bunting who had recently released his first volume of Ancient Music of Ireland. Moore was inspired to write lyrics to a series of traditional Irish tunes. The Irish Melodies made his reputation, today they are generally referred to as Moore’s Melodies. 

These songs provided the soundtrack for my childhood with my father’s robust baritone, and my mothers gentle crooning – whether in pram or bed, or of an evening by the fire, on family walks in the neighbouring countryside or drives further afield in an old Morris Minor. Sometimes lingering as the adults limbered up at nightfall, the lyrics and tunes seeped into my memory: Oft in the Stilly Night, The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls, Believe Me if all those Endearing Young Charms and, most memorably, The Meeting of the Waters

There is not in this wide world a valley so sweet

As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet,

Oh, the last rays of feeling and life must depart,

Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

it is not merely a rambling on the wonders of Irish scenery, but that friends, “the beloved of my bosom”, were near.

Sweet Vale of Avoca how calm could I rest,

In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best,

Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,

And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

Moore travelled In America in 1803, two decades after the United States had gained independence from Britain. Returning via Canada he wrote The Canadian Boat Song, grafting his lyrics to the stem of a French language song, a haunting evocation of piety and the pioneer life in ancient Acadian days.

He expressed low regard for America, and railed particularly against slavery. Outrage at his stance followed him back to London and culminated in an abortive duel with a literary critic. Lord Byron heaped scorn on him, but later they became close friends. He stayed for a while with Byron in Venice and the poet appointed him literary executor. However, Moore was persuaded to burn the memoirs on Byron’s death, as his family considered them scandalous.

Moore is often considered Ireland’s national bard, capturing the nascent Irish nationalist ethos in poetry and song. There were contradictions in his long life. Though an advocate of Catholic Emancipation, he considered O”Connell a demagogue. His path may have been less heroic than that of his friend Emmett, but its quiet luminosity can’t be doubted. He died in 1852