It Occurs to Me: The end of 'in through'

Over the past few years, I  have had the pleasure and privilege of helping to edit my cousin Christy Gillespie’s book ‘The Road to Glenlough’.
It is a remarkable work of scholarship and when it is published, don’t be surprised at the critical acclaim it gathers. Christy has been Jesuitical in his research and fact-gathering and still manages to make it a fascinatingly enjoyable read, rather than an academic tome to be consigned to the dusty shelves of university libraries.
As it says on the blurb, “There is no road to Glenlough. Not even a well-worn path. The valley, in the south-west highlands of Donegal, is as remote and monumental as it is enchantingly beautiful. It is a place that has attracted a number of notable visitors. These include American artist and illustrator Rockwell Kent, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and, if strong local tradition is to be believed, where Prince Charles Edward Stuart hid out after his failed uprising in Britain, as he waited for a failed ship to bring him back to the safety of mainland Europe.”
In the course of his research, Christy discovered that the Annie McGinley featured in the famous painting of the same name was a cousin of our granny’s clan.

The painting of Annie McGinley  

As I reminded readers some years ago, for Christy Gillespie and myself, a journey to the ‘Tabhairne agus Siopa’ in the Folk Village is always an emotional one, filled as it is with paraphernalia from Patrick McGinley’s shop and pub in Meenaneary.
Patrick was our maternal grandmother’s father, and the items include the christening robe used by the family for generations.
One of Christy’s photographs shows a gathering in Glen Lough in 1926, the night before Kent departed for good, with our grandmother Bridget, grand-uncle, fiddler Andy McGinley, and other family members. Twenty years ago, on a trip to St Petersburg with the Pushkin Trust, I walked entranced around the amazing Hermitage Museum, to be confronted by another of Kent’s most famous paintings, ‘Dan Ward’s Stack’.
 
Incredible
It was an incredible moment...I was transported from the home of Pushkin, the father of Russian literature, ‘in through’ to the place which inspired Kent to write: "I've travelled north and south east and west in search of mountain peaks but never until now have I found peaks whose summits reached so near to God as do you men of Donegal."
Inspired by all of the above, I wrote the following poem, imagining our granny Bridget and siblings walking from Meenaneary for the ‘big night’ in Glenlough in 1929, and grand-uncle Andy playing the fiddle as they all danced until dawn.
I called it “The End of In Through” as you can’t go further west on dry land.  The Hy-Brasil mentioned was the phantom island said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean west of Donegal.  Irish myths described it as cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it becomes visible but still cannot be reached.

THE END OF ‘IN THROUGH’
(In Memory of my grandmother, Brigid (McGinley) Byrne)

Before we claimed Rockall, we claimed Hy-Brasil,
More out of ‘thraness’ than patriotism.
Kent and Thomas imagined it, sitting foundered
In Dan Ward’s cottage, at the end of ‘In Through’
Had they heard ‘The Beirneach’ playing
‘The Road to Glenlough’, it would have come to them.

 "A tiny speck of white on the somber-hued
 Immensity of the surrounding moor", Kent wrote,
Later, Thomas penned a vampire tale, the Muse
Bubbling like a copper still through his veins.
On Bud-an-Diabhal, the Demon too slaked
His thirst..slugging a savage sea.

Somewhere on the road to Port,
Maybe between Meenacharvey and Meenaduff,
Andy McGinley resins his bow.
It is the ‘Big Night’ for Rockwell Kent,
And the Meenaneary ones are heading in.
“He’s for the States in the morning!”

Between Lougherahirk and Kiltyfanned,
Did you all pause for breath?
As Andy rose the roof in Ward’s old byre,
Did Annie dance in her famous blue dress?
Did her father carry a creel of the Demon
That nearly poisoned Thomas later on?

At the end of ‘In Through’, gannets screech
Like Famine ghosts at the mouth of the bay,
As the Meenaneary ones gather themselves
Again, for the hard road over the hill.
On Tormore, the spray spits salt
Bitter at yet another parting.

                               A TRUE HALLOWEEN HORROR tale in carrigart?
Despite having plenty craic at Halloween as a youngster, I never recall saying ‘Trick or Treat’ at doors. It must be a recent trendy import from across the water, but that being said, I hope you all have a noise-free weekend.
In any event, I’m reminded of a great story from local historian Aidan Manning, whose dad was the Guard in Carrigart before my father’s time. Andy was a character from Carrick outside Carrigart who spent many an early morning after the "busy" day in Carrigart roaring at the top of Manning’s lane, challenging and taunting "any man jack" among the Lord Leitrims to come up and fight and give him expiation for some ancient wrong done to his family.
He stopped performing abruptly and some years later explained why.
According to his version, one moonlit night, when he was half way through his production, "Ah eyed sometheen black and fast comeen towards me down around Mrs. Manning's house. Ah takes off right fast and tried to climb Mandy Duffy's gate to get out o' the way but ah couldn't get over and ah ripped me trousers on the barbed wire. The f….een thing came out on the main road in a shower o' dust and stones and heads right for me. If ah hadn't put me back to the wall ah would have been powder.
“The steam comeen from them bwastards o' horses wet me hair and the sparks from their hoofs singed me eyebrows. They were toween something black wi' wheels on it but ah didn't get a right gawk for ah kept me eyes shut so they wouldn't get fried. Yon heat wasn't human.
“Ah stayed off the main road for the rest of me way home for ah couldn't be sure if yer boys were just out for a wee dander or on a message t' Letterkenny. They might have intended t' turn around in front o' Mickey the Tailor's and take a second run at the job.
“Ah was shakeen for the rest o' the night, waiteen for them t' pull up on our street. There would have been a lot o' roareen and shouteen if they'd come, for ah wouldn't have gone easily"
He thought he had had "sometheen strange" to drink at Logue's that night but there had been no repetition of his experience as he had since confined his intake to Power and Guinness. "Yer never sure what'll come out o' them foreign drinks."