Irish Garden Poetry

I had heard sometime back that the Irish are fond of poetry, and many great poets are Irish. A few months back, I ordered a copy of The Book of Irish Verse - Irish poetry from the sixth century to the present, edited by John Montague so that I could do a little background reading on Ireland through poems. I even quoted a few lines from a 9th Century series of triads when thanking my host for his hospitality in arranging a dinner for me to meet some biomass industry leaders: Three things that are always ready in a decent man's house: beer, a bath, a good fire.

View of the valley from above Carlow

I was taken by how green Ireland is, even in the middle of April when I was told that it is still a little early for the season. The landscape is similar to green western Oregon, but still much different, and the old places are preserved in rock. Unlike Oregon where the old is still relatively new compared to

A 300 year old wall

this part of Europe, and made of wood that doesn't last. Everywhere in Ireland what is old is made of rock - ancient fences and walls and ruins of church towers, old houses in the country, and building in the towns, along side the old are newer ones, no more than 200 years young - scattered also around the countryside. Information signs in Gaelic and English - historic sites and signs, for renamed streets that are remembrances of an occupation not from across the Channel, but by a country in the east not more than 13 miles away at the nearest point - maybe more on that later. This is a country that is mostly farms and fields green with grasses and spring-planted wheat, with bright yellow rapeseed fields mixed in, along with cattle and sheep thrown in for good measure. And everyone is named John, except for those with names like Declan, Hazel, Ewen, and Padraig. These are a few fresh memories of Ireland.

An Irish garden in Adare

I spend all but one night in Carlow, with the exception a hotel in Adare on the way to Limerick. Across the street from my lodging were thatch-roofed cottages and shops - obviously for the pleasure of tourists. But the front yard garden of one was worth a quick picture - an Irish garden. Over a cup of tea with milk on Friday, one of my hosts commented that Irish gardens are, "Where you stuff the beds full of plants." It didn't matter to me, this picture fits my mind's eye vision of the way a garden should look. I found an Irish garden designer's Website, and she had good article posted that described what are actually Irish gardens.

Research plot of "salley" - willow

Maybe since there is not really an actual Irish garden style, there is not an abundance of Irish poems about them. One garden poem is by William Butler Yates, but it doesn't describe the kind of garden seen in the photograph above, or the formal English garden as found in estate as in the earlier post about Duckett's Grove Castle. The Yates poem depicting a "salley" garden, is describing a utilitarian garden of willows (1) - but regardless, it is a scene in a Irish garden none-the-less.

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;

She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she placed her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

Edenderry Power facility

An Irish salley garden today is not a place where young lovers would likely meet, unless the two were farmers kindling their love while growing willow to be harvested as biomass for fuel in pellet stoves for heat, or blended with peat and burned at a power station to generate electricity. But this may not be so strange, that willow once grown in gardens for its fiber to support a basket making industry, is now an industrial feedstock for bioenergy. My hosts are doing research on willow - finding ways to better grow the trees year after year, so more of Ireland's energy can come from indigenous sources, rather than oil - a further greening of the Emerald Isle.
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(1) A salley is a willow tree. It was once common to have gardens of willows for osiers (willow rods). These gardens were kept to have material for basket-making and for thatch roofing of cottages. The Gaelic for willow is saileach, which comes from the Latin, salix for willow tree. Definition is from the link here.