THE YELLOW RIVER - Seán McSweeney & Gerard Smyth
The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County. The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.
My divining rod – and Seán’s rapture before his field of vision – were, I think,reactivated by this renewed contact, not just with the land itself but the way inwhich a road here, a signpost there, the old – now redundant – pump that I sooften carried buckets of water from and even the names on the headstones inFletcherstown cemetery, all added up to a vista of what Yeats called “those recollectionswhich are our standards and our beacons”.Seán and I began the partnership process with a dialogue, an exchange of therecollections each of us had stored away. People and moments of great personalsignificance came back into the frame of memory. Like myself he had retaineda very profound sense of connection even though his time in Clongill came toan abrupt end at a young age following the tragic early death of his father. Thatdid not in any way sever his bond of fidelity and affection. In fact for both of us,Meath has been a place of harsh truths: an abiding image that has remained withme to this day is of my mother being placed in an ambulance that arrived in thefarmyard during our stay in the summer of 1957 – she was taken to hospital inNavan and then to Dublin where she died in the autumn of that year.As well as imaginative journeys back to certain Meath moments of the past wemade physical journeys – separately and together. When I became aware thatthere was one dominant feature of the local landscape that had stuck in Seán’smemory – the trees – it struck a chord. My own image hoard also had its trees,often overarching the much quieter roads of those years and particularly alongthe half-mile stretch from Wilkinstown village to my grandmother’s cottage, aroad which only recently I learned was once called the Turnpike Road.There were also the trees in the farmyard and its adjacent lane towards the oldrailway line that once served the Gypsum train, their sounds in the night breezesheard beyond my bedroom window as well as the magnificent elm – one poemhere is a lament for its loss after it was cut down during a bout of elm diseasein the Eighties – on the lane and which Seán’s imagination has restored in hisevocative watercolours of the cottage at Knightstown.In another poem, “The Blackbirds of Wilkinstown”, I recall the trees as being… like trees in a Russian novel –tall and gaunt, some ready to fallin the next winter storm.Almost a hundred years before I wrote those lines, the presence of so many treesas a characteristic of the landscape around Wilkinstown was noted by the poetFrancis Ledwidge. In a letter written in 1915 to Lizzie Healy, then resident inthe village, he asks her to “ remember me to the bog and all the trees aroundWilkinstown”.12
In the course of a journey back to explore the places lodged in memory, Seánand I shared with each other our individual sites of reference and stories thatrelated to our early experiences of Meath. There seemed to be much in commonto both our perspectives and to the resonances our places had for us. Seán’s recallof his disrupted childhood in Clongill was full of very exact detail, his senseof attachment utterly palpable.It was as a result of my treks back to haunts that had stayed in my mind for solong that the search for my maternal great-grandparents’ grave finally yielded aresult and, for the first time, I stood where my Great-grandfather Michael Bathewas laid to rest in 1904 in the beautifully located old cemetery in Kilshine.The graveyard stands on a raised stretch of ground from which there is apanoramic view of the surrounding countryside. In that moment I had an immediatesense of what my ancestors must surely have regarded as their “mostlovely Meath” – as the poet F R Higgins once described it. For those ancestors ofmine it was also of course the land of their toil, land which for me later becamemy “allegorical landscape”, where place and circumstance conspired to createmy country of memory.As for the powerful bond of attachment that even now still clings to both Seánand myself, I am reminded of the words of Wallace Stegner: “Expose a childto a particular environment at his susceptible time and he will perceive in theshapes of that environment until he dies”.ShorelineWatercolour on paper14.5 x 20.5 cm201613
- Page 1: YELLOWSeán McSweeney & Gerard Smyt
- Page 5: YELLOWSeán McSweeney & Gerard Smyt
- Page 10 and 11: called “ his personal language as
- Page 14: Yellow RiverWatercolour on paper14.
- Page 18 and 19: THE BLACKBIRDS OF WILKINSTOWNIt is
- Page 21 and 22: Ploughed FieldTempera on paper14.5c
- Page 24 and 25: GOLDEN WONDERSThey were watching th
- Page 27 and 28: AT THE GRAVE OF MICHAEL BATHEThis c
- Page 29 and 30: ON THE FARMDon’t look for those n
- Page 31 and 32: 31Summer FieldTempera on paper28 x
- Page 33: THE RAIN BARRELGrandmother was a ra
- Page 36: WHEN THE ELMS DIEDWhen the elms die
- Page 39 and 40: THE KILLJOY MONTH…..and I knewtha
- Page 41: (3)i.m. Paddy TraynorWith his turf-
- Page 44 and 45: MYSTERIESWho wore the Tara Brooch b
- Page 46 and 47: THE SALTED ROADSLand pays the price
- Page 49 and 50: BECTIVEThe house still stands but t
- Page 53 and 54: SUNDAY IN CATTLE COUNTRYSunday had
- Page 55 and 56: LEDWIDGE IN LOVE AND WARA small hou
- Page 57 and 58: THE DAY JIM REEVES DIEDThe day Jim
- Page 59: THE OLDCASTLE DANCEfor Shay KeoghIn
In the course of a journey back to explore the places lodged in memory, Seán
and I shared with each other our individual sites of reference and stories that
related to our early experiences of Meath. There seemed to be much in common
to both our perspectives and to the resonances our places had for us. Seán’s recall
of his disrupted childhood in Clongill was full of very exact detail, his sense
of attachment utterly palpable.
It was as a result of my treks back to haunts that had stayed in my mind for so
long that the search for my maternal great-grandparents’ grave finally yielded a
result and, for the first time, I stood where my Great-grandfather Michael Bathe
was laid to rest in 1904 in the beautifully located old cemetery in Kilshine.
The graveyard stands on a raised stretch of ground from which there is a
panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. In that moment I had an immediate
sense of what my ancestors must surely have regarded as their “most
lovely Meath” – as the poet F R Higgins once described it. For those ancestors of
mine it was also of course the land of their toil, land which for me later became
my “allegorical landscape”, where place and circumstance conspired to create
my country of memory.
As for the powerful bond of attachment that even now still clings to both Seán
and myself, I am reminded of the words of Wallace Stegner: “Expose a child
to a particular environment at his susceptible time and he will perceive in the
shapes of that environment until he dies”.
Shoreline
Watercolour on paper
14.5 x 20.5 cm
2016
13
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