Poetry of Place Part Two

Round Bales, Meath

A trip to Westmeath today brought more awareness of place. How did all these areas get their names? Churches, graveyards, village pumps and even fields full of round bales of hay seemed miraculous. My friend explained to me that an area called "Clondalee More" means the "The Meadow of the Two Big Calves". In Mullingar I heard a man busking outside a shopping centre

Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.
Tá Gráinne Mhaol ag teacht thar sáile
óglaigh armtha léi mar gharda,
Gaeil iad féin is ní Francaigh ná Spáinnigh
's cuirfidh siad ruaig ar Ghallaibh.

Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Now that summer's coming!
Grace O'Malley is coming over the sea,
Armed warriors as her guard,
Only Gaels are they, not French nor Spanish...
and they will rout the foreigners!

Harking back to the previous post's conquest and battle in defending territory and homeland, why are peoples always being transposed? Does naming a place grant ownership? There is great power in language. Is the pen mightier than the sword? In the end hearts and minds are only won in communication. Language is the great bridge between minds, at least until thought becomes readable.

A most interesting site I have found is poetryatlas.com which maps the world in poetry. If you search for Meath you will find locations of some famous poems about the county. In his essay A Shifting Sense of Place Jeremy Richards wonders where is the poet's sense of place today?

"In their anthologized visions of place, classic poets could stroll through an orchid garden, stumble past a church, or kneel in the grass and feel sated and grounded. But today, where is the poet’s sense of place? Itinerant, polluted, untethered? Tweeted and Foursquared? Or is it still Romantic, still finding solace in nature, tripping over the transcendent on every morning stroll?"

The rise of digital humanities has led the poet online, and especially during the pandemic. But that could be a discussion for another day. I've ended up here in this place, where I never intended on going. Eureka! Or something like that! Not all who wander are lost.