While the 2012 Tour de France was taking place, Cork-born indie author Emmet Ryan was on his own cycling tour of Ireland. Ryan graduated from University College Cork with a degree in English and Psychology in 1999. He travelled to Seoul, South Korea before making London his home for almost 10 years. A cycling fan’s ride around Ireland is the story of his return home and journey round Ireland by bike. In this extract, Ryan dismounts in Yeats’ home county Sligo…
After a short rest I wandered off to check out the town and stumbled upon The Yeats Memorial Museum. This was a much more romantic redbrick building and it provided more than just situational contrast; it’s a symbol of old Ireland.
Yeats, I don’t think, would have been too enchanted by my hotel and all that it stood for. He had a ‘spawning fury’ of the modern world. In a way, he probably would have preferred if we all rode horses and carts around, spent our time picking daisies on fairy hills and writing poetry in yoga poses. He agreed that where the Saxon was often pragmatic, practical and scientific, the Celts were much more emotional, poetic and spiritually inclined.
I was pleased and surprised that this museum was still open as it was well past 5pm. A couple of foreign tourists who were ahead of me led the way inside and I felt glad that my day would not after all, be solely a day of travelling.
The dark rooms within revealed an old musty handwritten world. Dull black and white photographs clung to its walls and dusty books lay opened in well used display cabinets. All this enabled us to delve into the world of the great poet. I, being more inclined towards sentiment and meditation, was just beginning to get excited when a panic-stricken woman entered.
“Oh no, did I leave the door open? Eh, you can’t come in I’m afraid. We’re not open. We closed a while ago but I mustn’t have closed the door properly. You’ll have to come back tomorrow. We open at 10am sharp. Sorry.”
It was clearly beyond the bounds of the woman’s imagination to allow anyone inside after closing time. Rules are rules. It was important to be practical and pragmatic, for fear of course that we might open the floodgates to other late-coming dreamy Yeats enthusiasts. Spontaneity was out, as well as emotion, spirituality and obviously poetry. The foreign tourists, who I think were Spanish, looked bemused and a little hurt that they too were shuffled on. At least it had stopped raining – kind of.
I wanted to visit Lough Gill next morning before I headed north again. Yeats was also the reason for this visit. The tiny Inishfree Island on Lough Gill was the inspiration for his most famous poem — The Lake Isle of Inishfree. The lake at least, where ‘peace comes dropping slow’, was something I wanted to see. Monday was likely to be quiet around Sligo, so with Lough Gill in mind, having an early night appealed.
After breakfast, I packed up and left the titanic hotel that is The Glass House and headed off in search of Yeats.
I’d been advised to find Cairn Hill, from where I would have a champion view of the lake. A short spin out of town heading south led me to the spot. It was radiant. Morning sunshine pushed through defeated clouds and the easeful silence filled me.
Yeats wrote his poem The Lake Isle of Inishfree while living in London. Had it not been for a water fountain on display in a shop window, which produced the sound of running water, the poem may never have been written. It reminded him of the ‘lake water lapping’ and his much longed for Sligo.
It begins with the line: ‘I shall arise and go now, and go to Inishfree’. The ‘pavements grey’ of his urban existence was not appealing and in his mind, seeming almost possessed, Yeats travels back to Lough Gill where he creates a utopic natural environment. Nor was urban life appealing to me. As I stood reciting the poem in my head, I understood that my bike trip around Ireland was also a call from ‘the deep heart’s core’.
My minute meditation was interrupted by a slightly older man who was walking his dog down the hill.
“It’s lovely isn’t it,” he said calmly as he too stopped to appreciate the scene.
“Gorgeous, it’s a great viewing spot.”
“Which island is Inishfree?” I asked as I raised my arm as if to point.
“You can’t really see Inishfree from here but that one there is Beezie’s Island,” he revealed proudly as he pointed it out.
Also known as Cottage Island, this was the home of The Lady of the Lake or Beezie Clerkin, who lived there alone until her death in 1949. Beezie was much loved by Sligo people. She was kind and hospitable and had a great rapport with the animals and wildlife whose home (the island) she shared.
After her husband’s death, Beezie refused to live anywhere else and often rowed the 10 kilometre round trip into Sligo where she bought provisions. She was 80 when a small fire in the cottage finally took her life. In many ways this woman lived the dream that Yeats created and yearned for in his poem.
We stood in silent contemplation for a few seconds. We knew that what we were looking at was special, the antithesis of stress. But it didn’t last long.
“Those feckin flies have me ett,” declared this now half-tormented man in his brown, flat accent.
Small flies, treating his head as breakfast, had been swarming around it since he’d arrived. This drove him mad. He clapped his hands in front of him in an attempt to kill one and then scraped the tiny carcass into his sleeve.
“Bastardin midges… I’m destroyed” he said as he scratched his head furiously.
“I’m off. Good luck,” he added abruptly as he moved away with his now barking dog.
While this man continued down the hill, I wondered how long he, or indeed any of us, would last living the hermetic life on a lake island like Inishfree. Harmony with nature? Beezie was probably of a rare breed.
Soon it was time for me to go too. I was heading north towards Donegal, but I had another Yeats related stop to make on the way. My second breakfast, which I was sort of getting used to having, would be had at the café at Drumcliff Churchyard, below the famous Ben Bulben Mountain where Yeats himself is buried.
Tour de Ireland: A cycling fan’s ride around Ireland by Emmet Ryan is available in paperback (£7.99) and for Kindle (£3.99) from Amazon.
