One of the attractions for WB Yeats, when he was considering buying the old Norman tower at Ballylee, was that the surrounding countryside echoed with stories of Antoine Ó Raifteiraí (1799-1835 ), the blind minstrel, who frequented the south Galway area.
The poet Ciarán O Coigligh tells us that Ó Raifteiraí’s verses arise directly from the circumstances of his own life, and those of the people among whom he lived: ‘Pre-famine Ireland, densely populated, unruly, dangerous, but energetic, is vividly portrayed.’
A satirist also, Ó Raifteiraí had a row with rival poets, the Ó Callanáin brothers, Marcas and Peatsaí. Ó Raifteiraí accused Peatsaí’s wife of promiscuity, leading to even more outrageous insults from the brothers, accusing Ó Raifteiraí’s woman Siobhan ‘who had his two children out of wedlock, one of whom the boy joined the travelling circus, and the girl was remembered as a famous drunk’.
Whatever about Siobhan, Ó Raifteiraí found love for Mary Hynes of Ballylee, all of which was not lost on Yeats. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite idea of woman as ‘romantic and mysterious’, still the priestess of her shrine, Yeats found his muses in living women, most notably in Maude Gonne. *
He bought the 14th century tower in 1916, and spent successive summers there with his family, and where he was inspired to write much of his finest poetry.
Alive with memories
Another advantage of Ballylee, was that he was within easy reach of Coole, the home of his life-long friend and supporter Augusta Lady Gregory. Yet Ó Raifteiraí was to have a far greater influence on Lady Gregory than on Yeats, and her quest to find his unmarked grave led her into a new life of Irish folklore and literature, which would become her purpose and drive throughout her brilliant career.
She found that the area was alive with memories of the blind poet. His verses were recited at weddings, wakes and firesides. Lady Gregory describes how she heard about him from people who knew him personally or knew about him indirectly, like the women from Kilchreest, she met in the Gort workhouse, who boasted:’ Raftery hadn't a stim of sight. He was the best poet that ever was and the best fiddler. It was always at my father's house, opposite the big tree, that he used to stop when he was in Kilchreest. Though he was blind, he could serve himself with his knife and fork as well as any man with his sight'.
There were many in South Galway who remembered Ó Raifteiraí’s biting satires, one of which “withered up a bush” near Rahasane. Many obtained their knowledge of Irish history, forbidden in the schools, from his songs, which were historical, political and religious. A neighbour told Lady Gregory: He used to stay with my uncle who was a hedge schoolmaster in those times at Ballylee and who was very fond of drink. But at evening he'd open the school and neighbours who would be working all day would gather in to him and he'd teach them through the night and there Ó Raifteiraí would be in the middle of them.
Mary Hynes
On the occasion of the founding of the Gaelic League in Kiltartan, January 1899, Tommy Hynes of Ballylee met Douglas Hyde, founder of the Gaelic League, who was collecting material on the blind poet. Tommy gave him some of Ó Raifteirí’s songs. One of them An Pabhsae Gléigeal, or Mary Hynes of Ballylee, was about a beautiful girl, a relative of Tommy’s who had died earlier in the century. Ó Raifteiraí met Mary near Kiltartan, on his way to Mass there. Tá’n soilear láider i mBail-uí-Liagh is said the allude to a deep pool, a swallow-hole in the river near where Mary Hynes’ house stood.
At the time of Hynes/Hyde meeting, most of the stones had been taken out of the gable and side walls to build other houses or stone walls. Whitethorns and briars grew among the remaining stones. Lady Gregory was told: “There would not be a hurling match in the county that she wouldn't be at and a white dress on her always. Eleven man asked her in marriage in one single day but she couldn't marry any of them. One man went to Ballylee to see her and when he came to the bog of Cloon he fell into the water and was drowned.”
An old woman who lived close to Ballylee Castle stated: “I often saw Mary Hynes, she was handsome indeed. She had two bunches of curls beside her cheeks and they were the colour of silver. I was at her wake too- she had seen too much of the world.”
Her end was the sad but not unusual for one of such peasant beauty. According to a story told to Hyde, she was seduced and abandoned by one of the so-called aristocracy and died in poverty some years before the Famine. However, the late John Hynes maintained that she got “the bad eye” from a crowd at the Stony Bridge in Derrybrien as she was coming on horseback from the Holy Well in Abbey. As a result, she died of pneumonia shortly afterwards.
Fined a shilling
The founding of the Kiltartan Gaelic league had a profound effect on Lady Gregory prompting her to learn Irish, and to win the support of the men who worked on the Coole estate to put themselves under ‘geasa’ (ie a solemn promise ) not to speak any English among themselves. Sean Connolly, an Aran Islander, spent the last months of the year 1900 giving Lady Gregory lessons, assisting her with translations, and teaching the Kiltartan Gaelic Leaguers.
She had been reared a strict Anglo Irish Protestant, but was becoming interested and involved in the growing nationalist movement. She had to face down criticism from some members of her class; even her own brother Frank Persse sneered at the Irish revival.
She supported feiseanna in Gort, Castledaly, and Kilbeacanty, and gained considerable notoriety by having all the Coole carts marked in Irish, as an expression of local solidarity with a Killina farmer, Bartly Hynes, who had received a summons for doing the same. His action was contrary to some obscure Victorian act. Captain Perry referred in contemptuous terms to the ‘hieroglyphs’ on Hynes’ cart. The farmer was fined one shilling.
‘For good or evil’
In 1900, a commission on education in Ireland issued a report, declaring Irish literature to be devoid of idealism or imagination. This report, written by Trinity College Professor Robert Atkinson and promoted by the influential Professor John Pentland Mahaffy, infuriated the Gaelic League, its founder Douglas Hyde, and Irish nationalists, including Yeats and Gregory.
Later that same year, English publisher Alfred Nutt asked Yeats to compose a collection, which would retell Irish myths and legends. Yeats refused, excusing himself as being too busy with his own work. Lady Gregory volunteered instead, initially hoping that the work might serve as a source of raw material to nationalist poets, as well as a rebuttal to critics of Irish literature like Atkinson and Mahaffy. At first, she lacked confidence in her writing abilities, and expected the work to take her a lifetime. After she earned the encouragement of Yeats, the work went to press in less than two years**
At a crowded Gaelic League meeting in July 1899 Yeats encouraged the revival of the language. He never learned to speak it but he told the meeting that ‘For good or evil’, he had to write his own books in English, and to content himself with filling them with as much Irish thought and emotion as he could, for ’no man can get literary mastery of two languages in one lifetime’.
He extolled the beauty of Irish music: ‘Could any English song be as beautiful as the song in which Raftery had prayed that the roads may be made dry before him, that he might come to their own Ballylee.’
‘With the people’
Lady Gregory became conscious of this move away from her upbringing, and what was expected from one of her class, when one evening she was walking along the road from Killeeneen to Craughwell, asking local people for past memories of Ó Raifteiraí, she suddenly found that her world had changed. “As I went back along the silent road there was suddenly the sound of horses and a rushing and waving about me, `and I found myself in the midst of the County Galway foxhounds, coming back from cub-hunting. The English master and his wife rode by, and I wondered if they had ever heard of the poet whose last road this had been. Most likely not, for it is only among the people that his name has been kept in remembrance.’
Nor would the master or his wife have recognised Lady Gregory walking on a country road. For her part she probably kept her head down. Her account clearly suggests that walking while the hunters rode, Lady Gregory now identified with the poet and his friends.
Ó Raifteiraí died in Darby Colonna’s house on Christmas Eve 1835. According to a witness ‘there was a sharp wind blowing at the time of Ó Raifteiraí’s funeral but it failed to quench the candles and that shows that the Lord had a hand in him.’
With the help of a Craughwell man, she located Ó Raifteiraí’s grave, which was unmarked, and had a monument raised at its head. The old man who pointed out the grave was Terry Furey of Killeeneen, who had been present at Ó Raifteiraí’s funeral 65 years previously.
The erection of the headstone on August 26 1900 was a grand occasion. The villagers had turned out in style, flags and bunting waved in the breeze, a band played. With the people were WB Yeats, Edward Martyn, Douglas Hyde, the local school-teacher, Fr McDonough, and Augusta Lady Gregory.
NOTES: * WB Yeats and the Muses by Joseph Hassett, Oxford, 2010
** Cuchulain of Muirthemne published by John Murray,1902; Poets and Dreamers (translated from the Irish ) John Murray,1903; Gods and Fighting men, John Murray, 1904
Some years ago, through the initiative of the late Fr Martin Coen, sculptures to honour Raftery and Lady Gregory were erected in Craughwell.
Sources this week include essay on Ó Raiftearaí by Ciarán O Coigligh, Dictionary of Irish Biography, and Kiltartan - Many Leaves One Root, by Mary de Lourdes Fahy RSM, published by The Kiltartan Gregory Cultural Society, 2004.
Raftery's Praise of Mary Hynes
(Translated )
GOING to Mass by the will of God, the day came wet and the wind rose;
I met Mary Hynes at the cross of Kiltartan, and I fell in love with her there and then.
I spoke to her kind and mannerly, as by report was her own way;
and she said "Raftery my mind is easy; you may come to-day to Ballylee."
When I heard her offer I did not linger;
when her talk went to my heart my heart rose.
We had only to go across the three fields; we had daylight with us to Ballylee.
The table was laid with glasses and a quart measure;
she had fair hair and she sitting beside me; and she said, "Drink, Raftery,
and a hundred welcomes; there is a strong cellar in Ballylee."
O star of light and O sun in harvest; O amber hair, O my share of the world!
Will you come with me on the Sunday, till we agree together before all the people?
I would not begrudge you a song every Sunday evening;
punch on the table or wine if you would drink it.
But O King of Glory,
dry the roads before me till I find the way to Ballylee.
There is sweet air on the side of the hill, when you are looking down upon Ballylee;
when you are walking in the valley picking nuts and blackberries,
there is music of the birds in it and music of the Sidhe.
What is the worth of greatness till you have the light of the flower of the branch that is by your side?
There is no good to deny it or to try and hide it; she is the sun in the heavens who wounded my heart.
There was no part in Ireland I did not travel, from the rivers to the tops of the mountains;
to the edge of Lough Greine whose mouth is hidden, and I saw no beauty but was behind hers.
Her hair was shining and her brows were shining too; her face was like herself, her mouth pleasant and sweet;
She is the pride and I give her the branch; she is the shining flower of Ballylee.
It is Mary Hynes, the calm and easy woman, has beauty in her mind and in her face.
If a hundred clerks were gathered together, they could not write down a half of her ways.
Listen to Tom Kenny and Ronnie O'Gorman elaborating on topics they have covered in this week's paper and much more in this week's Old Galway Diary Podcast.
