Spring in the West [Video]
As we emerge from the dark incubation of the wintering season, the world outside the window begins to come back to life. The buds are slowly coming onto the trees, the earth softens, and new life forms. Our souls are growing, too.
When we are attuned to the wisdom of nature and the changing seasons, we can also begin to trust the timing of things in our own lives. Our seasons of transformation take time, too. See how patient nature is? The gentle becoming that is unfolding.
This poem is one of the most well-known poems in the Gaelic Irish language in Ireland. It is a beautiful meditation on Spring in the west, which is Ireland’s west coast.
A generation of Irish children, now grown up, learned it in school, and The Irish Times voted it one of the top 100 Irish poems.
The poem is by the poet, Máirtín Ó Direáin who came from the Aran Islands, a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) region off the west coast of Ireland.
Ó Direáin was born in 1910 in Sruthán on Inis Mór, the largest of the islands. The writer Louis de Paor described him as “one of a trinity of poets who revolutionised Irish language poetry in the 1940s and 50s” with Seán Ó Ríordáin and Máire Mhac an tSaoi.
In 1942, at 32 years of age, he produced his first poetry collection, Coinnle Geala (Bright Candles). He followed this with Dánta Aniar (Poems from the West) in 1943.
Like many in Ireland, I learned this poem ‘by heart’ when I was 10 or 11 years old in school. What I love about this poem is how, without fail, its lines come back to me every Spring.
It is such a beautiful visual poem. The poem also conveys a sense of yearning, exile, and a desire to return home to the West. The poet had lived many years in Dublin and wrote about his own community, the Aran Islands. The poem shines with a sense of remembering the peace and tranquillity of island life.
This poem also speaks to me of the changing seasons and how, in Spring, there is an easy meeting of this season, too, in all its subtle and gentle beauty.
I love what these images evoke - feelings of hope and heartfelt gratitude for the here-and-now moments. The glistening seaweed, the promise of the currach coming to shore full of fish and, of course, those final golden closing lines, where he speaks of the closing of the day.
Ar ór-mhuir mhall
I ndeireadh lae;
San Earrach thiar.
On a calm golden sea
At eventide (at the end of the day)
In the Western Spring.
Tá súil agam go mbainfidh tú taitneamh as.
I hope you enjoy it. Below is the full text of the poem with translation.
An tEarrach Thiar
Fear ag glanadh cré
De ghimseán spáide
Sa gciúnas shéimh
I mbrothall lae:
Binn am fhuaim
San Earrach thiar.
Fear ag caith eamh
Cliabh dhá dhroim,
Is an fheamainn dhearg
Ag lonrú
I dtaitneamh gréine
Ar dhuirling bháin.
Niamhrach an radharc
San Earrach thiar.
Mná i locháin
In íochtar diaidh-thrá,
A gcótaí craptha,
Scáilí thíos fúthu:
Támh-radharc síothach
San Earrach thiar.
Toll-bhuillí fanna
Ag maidí rámha
Currach lán éisc
Ag teacht chun cladaigh
Ar ór-mhuir mhall
I ndeireadh lae;
San Earrach thiar.
In the Western Spring
A man cleaning clay
From the back of a spade
In the gentle quiet
Of a sultry day:
Sweet is the sound
In the Western spring.
A man tossing down
A creel from his back
And the red seaweed
Gleams in the sun
On the white shingle
Glorious the sight
In the Western spring.
Women stand in the little pools
At low ebb tide
With skirts tucked up
Casting long shadows
On the peaceful scene
In the Western Spring.
Gentle lapping of oars
As a currach full of fish
Comes towards the shore
On a calm golden sea
At eventide
In the Western Spring.
Translated in English by Eileen Herlihy and Sr. Maeve McAllister.
REFERENCES
Louis de Paor, 'Réamhrá/Introduction', Máire Mhac an tSaoi, An Paróiste Míorúilteach (Dublin, 2011).