Site Library Library of Rome

Hewitt and O'Direain's Thoughts

Most countries of the world will define themselves by their native population. Ireland, however, has not had this luxury for several hundred years, even more so during the last one-hundred and sixty or so. When the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland in 1169, they opened up Ireland’s doors to a strong foreign presence that would persist until present day; depending on if you define Ireland as being made up of 26 counties or 32. Even before the Anglo-Normans there were the Vikings. Ireland has been attractive to invaders or immigrants for much of history. When the Famine struck in the 1840s, much of Ireland’s “natives” (more accurately, Ireland’s poor) emmigrates or dies (20% of Ireland’s total population). Many people therefore started defining Irish culture by it’s diaspora. Ireland was a melting pot, just like America, with high rates of immigration as well has emmigration and it’s people being forced the choice to become accultured or not; forced to define themselves as Irish or a people of their homeland, wherever that may be.
Two poems, “Once Alien Here”(John Hewitt) and “Uprooted”(Mairtin O’Direain) concern themselves with the thoughts of an immigrant and emmigrant, respectively. Hewitt describes is roots and leads up to his defining himself as Irish. O’Direain laments his family’s struggle to stay on the land they have held for generations, but seems it may be time to leave.
The beginning of Hewitt’s poem describes how his ancestors came to be in Ireland:

“Once alien here my fathers built their house,
claimed, drained, and gave the land the shapes of
use,
and for their urgent labour grudged no more
than shuffled pennies from the hoarded store
of well rubbed words that had left their overtones
in ripe England of the mounded downs.”

Hewitt’s ancestors were farmers from England. Its seems they were persuaded to go by “well rubbed words” and, being so, and as farmers, probably landed in a plantation. These words may be referencing events hundreds of years ago, specifically English colonization of Ireland and the practice of plantation. During the 17th century England established plantations in all four Irish provinces, most successfully and importantly in Ulster, as we will see why later. Hewitt’s people took this land and tied themselves to it, living on it and using it, making it their own, though it was still part of the larger plantation. Being part of the plantation had its pros and cons. Settling on a plantation gave you quick rights to farm and live on some land and it also provided protection. The English Crown had an invested interest in it’s Irish colony and did not want it being run out and sacked by angry, boisterous, Gael natives. You could farm with some relative security. The negative side of this life is expressed in this first part of the poem when mere “pennies” were earned from laboring until a “hoarded store” was accumulated. This colonists, Hewitt’s ancestors, worked hard and earned little.








The middle part of the poem gives the reader insight to the Gaelic side of this settling event:

“The sullen Irish limping to the hills
bore with them the enchantment and the spells
that in the clans’ free days hung gay and rich
on every twig of every thorny hedge,
And gave the rain-pocked stone and meaning past
the blurred engraving of the fibrous frost.”

Hewitt describes the Gaelic natives as accepting defeat and retreating off their native territory. This was mostly true of the major plantation territories with the exception of Hugh O’Neill’s Nine Years War. This rising, however was at the very start of plantation in Ireland and when himself, Rory O’Donnell, and Cuchonnacht Maguire fled in 1607, following their defeat in 1601, the Gaelic order truly collapsed and the culture retreated “to the hills.” The Gaels had been Catholic christians for a thousand years by now, a conversion that started around 450 AD with Saint Patrick, but this piece of Hewitt’s poem describes a very pagan culture or at least has very strong undertones of paganism. It should be noted that although Ireland became christian in those early times, it is unlikely it did so to include every crag, valley, and thicket. Also, even if Ireland declared itself christian, the rest of Europe (England and yes, Rome) did not see it as so. Irish christians practiced many doctrines that the rest of Christiandom saw as heresies. The same may be true of Hewitt’s view of the native Gael. Being English, it is likely he was Protestant and would have seen Catholics as heretics. But this poem brings on images of druidry, speaking of enchantments and spells and has great imagery of the natural world, describing hedges and stone and what they may have meant beneath their surfaces. Another poem of Hewitt’s has similar undertones:

“And what a people loves it will defend.
We took their temples from them and forbade them,
for many years, to worship their strange idols.
They gathered in secret, deep in the dripping glens,
Chanting their prayers before a lichened rock.”

– John Hewitt, “The Colony,” 1950
– from Forever, by Pete Hamill

Hewitt either sees these Catholic as heretics, has a very romantic and fantastical view of Gaelic culture in 17th century Ireland, or his ancestors truly glimpsed druids in the hills surrounding their farm (unlikely). The idea of Hewitt having romantic visions of the Gael seems most likely since this poem will end with him having a hard time with defining himself as an Irish native or English. His family has been an Ireland for generations according to the first line of the poem and their lifestyle has undoubtedly overgone some “gaelicization”. A man who is changing the definition of his life to a certain way probably wouldn’t view that way as being heretical.







“So I, because of all the buried men
in Ulster clay, because of rock and glen
and mist and cloud and quality of air
as native in my thought as any here,
who now would seek a native mode to tell
our stubborn wisdom individual,
yet lacking skill in either scale of song,
the graver English, lyric Irish tongue,
must let this rich earth so enhance the blood
with steady pulse where now is plunging mood
till thought and image may, identified,
find easy voice to utter each aright.

Hewitt defines himself as being Irish and no longer English. He reveals his Irish roots are in Ulster. His reason for being Irish are his ancestors being buried there and his thoughts and visions are Irish ones. They reflect Irish culture and values, as a bardagh. His inability to speak neither Irish or English well puts him in a difficult position to follow either culture, but his heart is in Ireland and he will leave it to the land to heighten his identity as an Irishman.
Mairtin O’Direain, on the other hand, is Irish and he’s trying very hard to keep it so. “Uprooted” tells the side of the Gael being pushed off his land and out of his house, to find a new home. The first three stanzas tell his ancestor’s story, just as Hewitt did.

“Our fathers
And their fathers before them
Were at grips with life
And wrestled with the naked rock.

They were happy
When the seasons revealed to them
Earth’s kindly abundance
And they were eager
To hold their own
Against the force of the elements.

One man built a house
And another
A dyke or a wall
Which outlived him
And kept his name alive.

O’Direain’s people were farmers, just as Hewitt’s people. The first stanza depicts a hard life, but it’s rebuttled by the second stanza’s contentedness. They welcomed hardship with enthusiasm and thrived, building improvements as testaments to their existence. These improvements have the feel of memorials; the only thing keeping his people “people” at all. The last stanza forces thoughts of megalithic monuments, proof of an ancient Celtic heritage and past in Ireland. Man’s desire to be remembered past his time and for his blood to be passed down through patrilineal descent is almost as old as time. Charles Darwin would define failure to pass down any descent at all as an unsuccessful existence. O’Direain’s family succeded in passing down inheritance generation after generation, surviving the Famine in Ireland. O’Direain’s generation have hit financial hardship, however, and it has a monetary source. The last two stanzas describe’s the present state of the O’Direains:

“We, their children,
And their children’s children,
Are compelled
To make our homes
In apartments whose owners
Would levy rent
On the drip from the ceiling.

We will be remembered yet:
A stack of files
Weighed down with dust
Will survive in a government office.”

O’Direain feels the desire to hold on to his roots and to continue to hold his inheritance that is generations old. The landlords, however, will not make it easy, as the rents seem to be getting larger and larger. During the the middle of the 19th century Irish peasants were faced with little if no food and money. Regardless, landlords continued taxing and raising rents of these tenants. Quotations from Famine Diary speak of the problem in Ireland during the 1840s: “While Ireland produces such abundance, the inhabitants are starving”, “There are five millions of people always on the verge of starvation”, “The tenantry must perish, or the landlords must contribute.” The contribution here refers to feeding a starved people. Angered landlords would simply evict non-paying tenants.
These steep rents have carried to Mairtin O’Direain and this end of the poem suggests he has resolved to leave his homeland, even if just his native county, to find a new life as so many Irish before him. He finds comfort, albeit small, in his society’s custom in keeping records.
These two poems together truely effectively glimpse Ireland from 1400-1922 and earlier, really. They conjur druids, Saint Patrick, Gaelic order, English colonialism, Gaelic collapse, and famine. Maybe even some nationalism on behalf of John Hewitt to bring the window right through 1922. Not everything by any means, but certainly areas that might stand out to a person remembering. The poems also give an English side and a Gaelic side to Ireland– two sides that together make an Irish story as a whole, one that may never be separated.

Indonesia or the Dutch East Indies
Brigantes Abu!
Clan Mulrian
A Walk Through the Temple of Amun
The Precinct of Mut at Ipet-Isut
The First Gods
The First Kings
The First Queens
The First Cities
The First Artefacts
Image Overview of the Abydos Area
Chocolate — I can't live without it!

Hewitt and O'Direain's Thoughts

Joyce Vs. O'Conaire
Agriculture: A Choice
The Gods at Abydos: Ptah
The Temple Building in Ancient Egypt
title
Ancient Egyptian Religion 2: Ma'at and Divine Kingship
Ancient Egyptian Religion 5: The Levels of Priesthood
Ancient Egyptian Religion 4: The Conditions of Priesthood
Ancient Egyptian Religion 6: The Service of Priesthood
Abusir, The Realm of Osiris
Ancient Egyptian Religion 3: Temples and Priests
Castrum Moguntiacum
Ancient Egyptian Religion 1: Ma'at and the Eternal Return
Fauces
The Festival of Opet at Waset
Ovid on Salmacis & Hermaphroditus
Vedic Astronomy
Oracle of Wadjet
Manchurian Sacred Crows.
The Trade in Tigers.
Bhutanese Sources.