Eileen Aroon

There once was a girl called Eileen, or was it Elanour, or maybe Aileen? If she only knew how long her memory would endure. If she only new the far flung ports in which her fame was propagated, added to, handed down over centuries and passed from voice to voice-an unbroken chain! The historical characters with whom she is associated include one Elanor Boote. Elanor's grave is in a old cemetery in Wexford. Though Mrs Boote is associated with the song, the actual Eileen remains elusive, in reality, she is most likely to be the object of the affections of Cearbhall ó Dálaigh "Chief Harper of Ireland" in the 14th century. Cearbhall is the first man to be associated with Eileen, but as the centuries progress other lives unfold and weave a mesmerizing shroud around her. A sort of cloud atlas is woven, that is at once, singularly fascinating, and also, completely bewildering. Eileen takes the guise of Eileen Kavanagh, sweetheart of Cearbhall O' Dálaigh, centuries later, she is Elanor Boote, later still, she holds the affections of Gearld Griffin. Gerald was a 19th century Limerick poet and writer, to Gerald, Eileen had become, not a living woman, but rather, a compass and map for human desire (I'm sure he had a few women in mind as he mused!). Indeed, Eileen was this archetypal figure as far back as Elizabethan times-where the song was sung at the interlude of Shakespearean plays, as a sort of airy, romantic, one stop shop for love. It being in phonetic Irish only added to its romantic allure - "Du ca tu non vanna tu Aileen a roon?" Whatever took your fancy could be conjured to the imagination-it being unintelligible to all but Irish speakers-who no doubt would have found it equally confounding sung from the mouths of the Elizabethans. Eileen Aroon continued to be performed on stage in this form for centuries. The song even found itself hummed on the back of a west bound wagon-crawling and creeping across the broad plains of North America, it became part of the traveling shows which followed the people of those great migrations.

"Killarney Milk Maid," 1847, George McDonald

Below, is my tuppence ha'penny, my piece of the jigsaw and part of the unravelling string that is Eileen Aroon. I'm singing Gerald Griffin's version (though I use some of the melody/embellishments of a version recorded by the McPeake family in the 1960's).

The State of it All

Don't rock the boat it may capsize

don't think, don't imagine, don't analyse-

the myriad of routes that might be

that stretch out before our eyes.

Let's dig a hole in the shifting sand,

dig down, hold tough, there! sight of land-

a mirage of desert is all you'll see

If you can't deduce a plan.

Govern countries from cliff bottom,

how to begin? With a seed that's rotten-

like a dark seed, to sea, on the wind

Rise, then fall, 'til all's forgotten.

I wrote this poem after hearing a radio piece about the death of Savita Halappanavar in a Galway Hospital, last month. Savita died after three times requesting (and not receiving) an abortion-due to severe back pain and the onset of miscarriage. The radio segment I was listening to (from the Sean Moncrieff show on Newstalk), interviewed people who were protesting Savita's death at the hands of the State. One aspect of the radio piece that struck me, was the fact that many of the middle-aged women who were protesting also protested the same backward and convoluted laws back in the 80's.  The only difference being that now they came with their own daughters, thirty years on. The poem doesn't deal with the senseless and tragic death of Savita, but rather, the myriad of wrong turns and dead ends this country has been led down since the State was created-often due to fear of change, fear of collapse, and perhaps fear of our own power to make our own choices.