Clancy's Kitchen The Podcast Episode 27 - Two Poets of Ireland & Wales

Ajouté : 2026-05-28

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[00:00:31]Crool, welcome back to Clancy's Kitchen the podcast and Cro Rand because you've been away in Wales touring. Uh you've been portraying the role of Welsh poet Waldo Williams. So we'll start off talking a bit about that. We might then get to uh look at some of the works of Irish poet Sheamus Heene. But let's look at Waldo Williams first and your whole experience of doing that. So tell us about Waldo Williams. Who was he?

[00:01:00]>> Well, it's been a few weeks now, but um it was some experience. I'll I'll start by saying that. Uh I never thought I'd be playing Waldo Williams because he's such an incredible character, an incredible poet, but also an incredible character because he was known as a poet. Um but also he was a peacemaker, an activist. He believed in pacifism not in a sort of throwaway >> way that many of us in the modern world >> do. He believed of it to he believed in it to the extent that he was jailed because he stopped paying taxes in his protest for the Korean War for instance.

[00:01:46]>> And then he wrote poems like Presscelli when he was in England that really had an effect on the the whole time they were living in. Um, for instance, the British government uh wanted to post the army down in West Wales in the Purcelli Mountains for their training and the environs >> and people like him had an effect on that not happening.

[00:02:15]>> You could be here for 3 hours talking about him. He was just an incredible character.

[00:02:20]>> Okay.

[00:02:22]What? because obviously he was um a Welsh carrier from. Are you familiar with sort of his the kind of place he grew up and could can you relate to all of that?

[00:02:36]>> Yeah, of course. Because you know that's your starting point as an actor and doing a show like this incidentally was a oneperson show but it was a play. You you look at it as a as an actor and you start with the script. Um it was a script beautifully written in my opinion by an excellent uh Welsh writer called Merritt Hopwood predominantly a poet herself. So she had that deep understanding of the of the poetry >> and you you start you begin at the beginning you begin with the text because I believe I'm a textbased actor >> but you look at someone's childhood first. And what's interesting about Waldo, he he grew up in a nonwelspeaking part >> of Wales, South Pembrichshire, half of it west. But as a young boy, he moved to the area known as the Presselli Mountains, Manaklodi and those type of areas. And the first thing that came off the script to me was he was transfixed by the experience of hearing the Welsh language naturally >> in its habitat without >> sounding like uh >> David Atra or anything.

[00:03:59]>> He was just >> changed by it I think.

[00:04:02]>> So although he moved How far away? It was only like what a couple of hours if that. Well, in our old countries, sometimes half an hour work can change a world. Absolutely. You know, um >> you move up from the flat lands of South Pemrachshire and you >> see the Pcelli mountains emerging in front of you and society changes a bit.

[00:04:26]Not so much today. I know a lot of people in South Prelure who are big into the Welsh language and things are changing all the time.

[00:04:34]>> Yeah. But traditionally you go into the heartlands of that rural area with its own colloquial rhythms, own small communities. Yeah.

[00:04:46]>> And the whole package, >> you know, hardworking people on hard land.

[00:04:51]>> Well, that's what I was going to say.

[00:04:53]other than the apart from the actual language and hearing and I guess the sounds of the language and how that was different to him from where he'd come from and Hford West to hear the real people speaking the the language of Wales there but the geographical location the Pcelli mountains it sounds romantic I mean all of that must have had an impact on them >> I think massively and and not in a romantic way you But it was more about other things, deeper moral things that sort of um paint his world outlook to you in his poems. Not always on the first reading you find it. He used to call them switches. He'd leave switches in his poems. So you go, "Ah, that's what he means."

[00:05:48]>> Wow.

[00:05:48]>> Like and then like a bulb going on, you know. So, who was Waldo Williams the man?

[00:05:55]>> That's a big question. And I I preface that by saying before going over to do the play, I wasn't worried as such. But I knew that people people I knew knew him so well and knew of his work.

[00:06:13]You had scholars, so many and people who re revered him and loved him. And I felt a bit I'm >> overwhelmed.

[00:06:22]>> Overwhelmed. Oh, I'm going back here and people will not like what I'm doing or I got him wrong because I didn't know him.

[00:06:28]>> And he was active. Sorry. Relant when like what years?

[00:06:32]>> Mid you know anywhere he was born at the beginning of the 20th century became active in the middle part.

[00:06:39]>> So probably late 30s 40s I believe into he died in 1971.

[00:06:44]>> Right. And he had one anthology which was stands today as his um work of art if you like. It's called dial pre leaves of the the wood leaves of the tree.

[00:06:57]>> And that's an important thing the root.

[00:07:00]>> So how do you as an actor approach that?

[00:07:05]What what was your process in finding this character and portraying this character?

[00:07:11]Well, years ago I worked with Terry Hans included theater company Cumbry who you know that used to be the director of an Englishman director of uh the Royal Shakespeare Company and he instilled something in a lot of us as actors a lot of Welsh actors >> that it begins with the text. You respect the text, you learn it well and then you can play with it >> and then you can take it to other places, you know.

[00:07:39]So I looked at it first as a play and one thing that came to my mind immediately was I remember watching Wacken Phoenix playing uh Napoleon in that film >> and I was thinking there are probably countless academics in this world scholars >> who have given their lives to study a figure like Napoleon. Okay.

[00:08:04]>> So my job wasn't to go I know everything about Waldo. I know everything about his poetry.

[00:08:09]>> I've read everything on him because people will know more than me.

[00:08:13]>> Yeah.

[00:08:14]>> But what's quintessential in actors, you know this, >> we observe.

[00:08:20]>> We're like kitchen sink psychologists and sometimes we have different color to other psychologists. I think because >> we watch people.

[00:08:29]>> So there was an >> there's a natural curiosity I guess is without a doubt.

[00:08:34]Yeah. And it's a good way to approach it because if you approach it from an sort of and especially with someone who was an academic, >> but you've got to find the man, who was the man, what was his inspiration?

[00:08:45]>> Yeah.

[00:08:45]>> So that curiosity in the same way that he was curious >> about life and how things worked.

[00:08:53]>> That's that's seems like a key or a way into it, isn't it?

[00:08:57]>> And he was such a 360 degree 3D type of character. You couldn't shy away from it because >> he had an abundance of joy. He was a brilliant teacher with children, not in the old stuffy way.

[00:09:12]>> There was a story actually where he bought a wigworm to bring into the school >> so he could go in and play and teach and read with the kids. He was so before his time. It sounds like something you'd see in Finland today. Right. And that and that's a great thing, isn't it, in portraying a character, not to get fixated with anyone something you read or you decide how they are. Inevitably, >> a piece of who you are >> is going to come into that as well. Like from what you're talking about, Waldo, I see a lot of you actually in that your thinking and your, you know, emotional attachment >> and the politics and all all of that side of it. Um I remember and and similarly with even a fictional character I remember when because you and I have different I guess >> we had different uh experiences uh with acting like you you've been acting from a very early age um professionally and I have as well but not professionally at the same level you have I guess I started with the local drama group you know >> um but But I remember when I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and looking at the different how how you approach the role of any character you're portraying and you know you're given different methods I guess of doing that.

[00:10:42]uh and one of them was Stannislosski Stannislavski and you know that whole the sense memory thing and that the method acting I guess generally you know >> and I guess there's there's a danger with being locked into any one way without a doubt >> of doing it like I feel >> I don't think Waldo would >> no I feel for me I I I'm a bit of a magpie with that I would take from different ways of different or it depends on the character >> you're portraying as well Isn't it? You know, >> I think it's good if you read Stannard Zelaskki or, you know, if you're into the method, no problem. Other guys or girls >> will turn up and say, I'll just know my lines like Ian Mckelen in that famous comedy sketch saying I pretend.

[00:11:30]>> Yes, >> I'm a wizard.

[00:11:33]>> Exactly. Wasn't it uh Lawrence Olivier said, "Well, I I don't find an actor until I put on my nose." He actually also told uh Dustin Hoffman when Dustin Hoffman the marathon man. Yeah.

[00:11:46]>> When he was running before >> Dustin Hoffman would be a method actor.

[00:11:50]>> Method actor to get out of breath.

[00:11:52]>> Yeah.

[00:11:53]>> And Larry Olivier would just turn to him.

[00:11:57]>> Haven't you tried acting my dear boy?

[00:12:00]>> Do you know what? I just finished reading uh well it was a few weeks back a book by Brenda Fricker >> and she was talking about um my left foot and uh and she won an Academy Award for that actually. You know, it was lovely how she talks about it in in the book actually, how she totally didn't expect to win this. But anyway, >> um Daniel D Lewis would be very much sort of method approach to acting and because he was playing the role of a paraplegia, I guess, in My Left Foot. He wanted her to sit with him >> during the the break or in the cafeteria and actually feed him as his mother, you know. And at a certain point she went, "Ah, for Christ's sake, Daniel, come off us now." You know, while everyone else was gone to the pub for a few, she was with him like pretending to, you know, immerse herself in this character.

[00:12:54]>> Well, I' I've been doing it for a few years now, and I think it's a good thing to take something from everything. But we're actually characters ourselves, playing characters.

[00:13:03]>> Yeah.

[00:13:04]>> So, the way we react to things is different. Yeah.

[00:13:07]>> Um I remember uh Fimb's good friend Christopher Walkan saying >> uh it's just me >> a version of me playing this type of angry or >> and then we put on a nose or a wig or >> but >> it's very difficult with someone like Waldo for it not to affect you >> because he's such an incredible character and I said about his playfulness >> and his humor >> he also also had a side that because he had that sensitivity >> that things hurt him more than >> Mhm.

[00:13:45]>> the average. I think two artists are like that.

[00:13:48]>> It just affects you.

[00:13:50]>> And he had a few hard losses in his life. He lost his um sister Morvid when she was young. He lost his wife after two years of marriage >> and he she was the nest of him really and his mother >> the only way of putting it she was the >> he beneath heave >> she was my nest my heaven >> and she lost her again >> can you give us a piece of >> well >> some of his works >> it's uh Tony Condrin uh is someone who translated his poems um we might do a song afterwards Yeah, lovely.

[00:14:29]>> You know, >> and one of the first, this poem wasn't in the play, um, but it's one that I knew from when I was 18. Um, a poem called Cavio.

[00:14:43]>> It's one of his early ones.

[00:14:44]>> Cavio means remembering.

[00:14:46]>> Yeah. And it's probably more lyrical than others later that would have deeper meaning maybe. I don't know.

[00:14:54]>> But because of that, I'll read it. Mhm.

[00:14:57]>> It seems slightly in congruous to read it in English >> because >> Yeah, I can imagine it was written in Welsh originally.

[00:15:04]>> I'll recite the first verse in Welsh.

[00:15:08]>> Right. Okay.

[00:15:09]>> To get the feel of his language and then you get >> the whole poem in English just to get the sense of the man I suppose. And he talks about the the power of memory and thinking about the things that are gone, the languages that we don't hear today and the importance of that. They hold together a universe of of a whole culture, of a whole people's lives and ways.

[00:15:34]>> Okay, go on. Read it.

[00:15:35]>> Cavar remembering put a bit of something on it.

[00:15:50]In vill or inven before The sun has left the sky.

[00:16:18]One minute, one dear minute before the journeying night to call to mind the things that are forgotten.

[00:16:32]Now in the dust of ages, lost from sight.

[00:16:40]Like foam of a wave on a lonely sea coast breaking. Like the wind's song where there's no ear to mind.

[00:16:52]I know their calling.

[00:16:55]Calling to us vainly.

[00:16:58]Old unremembered things of humankind.

[00:17:07]exploit and skill of early generations.

[00:17:12]From tiny cottages or mighty hall, fine tales that centuries ago were scattered.

[00:17:21]The gods that nobody knows now at all.

[00:17:28]Little words of old, fugitive languages that were spritly on the lips of men and pretty to the ear in the prattle of children.

[00:17:43]But no one's tongue will call on them again.

[00:17:50]Oh, generations on the earth encumbered their divine dreams. Fragile divinity is only silence left to the hearts affections that once rejoiced and grieved as much as we.

[00:18:13]Often when I'm alone and it's near nightfall, I yearn to acknowledge you and know each one.

[00:18:26]Is there no way fond memory can keep you?

[00:18:33]Forgotten ancient things of the family of man.

[00:18:41]>> Wow.

[00:18:42]a strong theme about loss in there, isn't there?

[00:18:47]>> Loss of certain ways of expressing maybe >> but also to for us to understand how precious our things are.

[00:18:56]>> The languages.

[00:18:57]>> Mhm.

[00:18:57]>> How many languages have we lost?

[00:19:00]>> And a language isn't a language isn't academic. Mhm.

[00:19:06]>> It's Collie Power said on the loss of what's his name now from the brewery Tom Ne.

[00:19:14]>> Tom Neland. Yeah.

[00:19:15]>> He said people often site when someone like Tom Neland dies a library dies with him.

[00:19:22]>> Yeah.

[00:19:22]>> Imagine the language then.

[00:19:24]>> Yes. Yeah.

[00:19:26]>> It's amazing. He's amazing. Well done.

[00:19:29]Yeah.

[00:19:29]>> Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. This I thought of doing a very minor song called B >> but it's too somber maybe.

[00:19:38]>> Yes, >> this is sort of about loss. Uh my father used to sing this one but it's beautiful. It's called a guid glass. The blue glass.

[00:19:47]>> I know the first verse.

[00:20:13]Roch.

[00:20:31]God my world is see the word men Adin Harwing Harat.

[00:21:30]See the earth trusty right?

[00:21:54]Term glad.

[00:22:33]Not my dear.

[00:22:47]My worth isity.

[00:23:00]See the Mendo class.

[00:23:33]I think we sang that in our wedding day.

[00:23:35]>> I think we did. Rush.

[00:23:36]>> Yeah.

[00:23:37]>> So, we've talked about um Waldo and my processes, but you could go on for ages, could you? I get lost in it a bit.

[00:23:45]>> Yeah.

[00:23:46]>> But you of course had your processes in acting. And that goes back to >> good old Hollywood, doesn't it?

[00:23:54]>> Good old Hollywood. that that was purely kind of accidental really because I went to Boston. Uh I've talked about this before a little bit so uh I won't go on too much about it but basically I got the acting bug let's say um you know cuz I was always involved in in drama at home in plays.

[00:24:16]>> I was going to say is before that actually.

[00:24:18]>> Yeah. Well, it was at home. I mean, the brewery lane we've talked about here, we've had Collie Power on and how amazing it was and that, you know, one for one season you might be playing the lead actor and the next season it's like, "No, you're painting the sets now, making the tea at the at the break kind of thing."

[00:24:33]>> Grounding.

[00:24:34]>> Exactly. No, it was a great grounding.

[00:24:37]>> Yeah, it was a fabulous grounding. Um, but when I went to Boston, my sister EA was to play a part in a play and she was too busy. she was performing uh concerts and she asked me to step in and I did and that's when I kind of got the acting bug. Um and it was great crack. It was just such great fun. And I went from there to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena. Now I wanted to go to New York in actual fact, but my boyfriend of the time wanted to go to uh to the Sun. So we ended up in Pasadena.

[00:25:16]Yeah. And and interestingly, he's passed away since, God rest him, David Shannon, but he's his father was >> uh American ambassador to Ireland in the 1970s. Yeah.

[00:25:28]>> So, we ended up in Pasadena and I ended up going to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts without putting really too much thought into it. And we were saying earlier about styles of acting and your approach to acting and I had never thought about it really. It was a case of learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture as they say.

[00:25:46]>> Still that isn't it?

[00:25:48]>> I guess. Yeah. Um but then it was the whole thing about you know your your your method and that to me was like what does that even mean? I think I got too much in my head about the whole thing.

[00:26:01]Um, and I remember doing this part actually from the play The Glass Managerie Steinbeck >> and um, >> No, that's Tennessee Williams.

[00:26:13]>> No, no, Tennessee Williams. Tennessee Williams. The Glass Managerie. And it was the mother, the part of Amanda, you know. And I remember trying to get this character and doing the whole background and writing a biography on this character and how she would move and how she would speak and what she would say and all the rest of it. And uh and this was just an exercise in class kind of thing. I thought this isn't going the way it's supposed to. And I remember um you know I was supposedly making food like stirring up pot of porridge or something and I was giving out to my son Tom and I thought well this has gone out the window now anyway and and I remember you know the porridge spilling out of the bowl and catching a bit and throwing it at him and laughing and then just stopping going sorry that all went and I remember the director or the the instructor let's say drama instructor going no that's it >> you know stay stay with that. Yeah, >> you know that like you you found something within that the playfulness that was absolutely lovely >> and and that's when I found okay so you know I can bring part of my own stuff into this.

[00:27:22]>> I don't have to stick rigidly to this is how you perform a charact because you know um you know some people say well it's just you.

[00:27:32]>> Yeah. Yeah, >> others say well it's a mix you know you can immerse and do your method. I remember doing something which was a sort of development of the stunners lassi >> method >> Sam Kogan style of acting I think it's Russian >> and >> it was too rigid for me because the script had to be a b c d >> types of thoughts right which is like you walk into a room >> and your first thought is this and that's nonsense because it's so easy all in your head. How can how can you react honestly?

[00:28:10]>> But to say about the hour when the muse, you know, being chaotic, but that's how our minds are.

[00:28:17]>> Yeah, it is.

[00:28:17]>> It's like being in a funeral and you might start laughing. You know, it's it's the terrible things that come in.

[00:28:23]You our minds aren't structured. So that's why I always come back to text being get the text lock off then you could do anything.

[00:28:32]>> That's interesting. I I wouldn't approach it that way. Isn't that >> That's me. That's me. I have to look at the character and yeah >> then you can turn.

[00:28:40]>> But you know what I found really helpful? One of the most helpful things which which at the beginning I thought what the hell is this was fencing. One of the things we were instructed in >> the this fence.

[00:28:54]>> Yeah. The because it's a fence defense the whole time. So you're responding without thinking. It's just a spontaneous reaction which is what life is all about. And acting is >> life >> reacting.

[00:29:08]>> Yeah. I remember the whole one of the instructors there life problems are acting problems and acting problems are life problems. And that's what I found if I got too in my head about something.

[00:29:18]I always found it much easier to play characters that were a million miles away from the person I was actually.

[00:29:25]>> Wow. Yeah. Like I remember um I remember they uh we looked at dancing at Luna Brian Fel >> and I find I found that character um what's the character's name now?

[00:29:39]Christina I think Chris Mundy was the Mundy sisters >> and it was too close to home in lots of ways you know and and I kind of felt no I can relate too much and I can't lose I can't completely immerse myself in it because I know I know it too well I I I know that sounds crazy but I found it easier to play far more abstract characters people who are far different to me. I remember playing the part of um I can't remember what the the play was called but it was like a cocknney kind of eccentric character >> do you know? Yeah. And it was like you know I'm really out there somewhere darling and just really >> loving that cuz it was so different to the person I was and I wasn't in my head at all >> you know.

[00:30:27]>> So it's amazing isn't it?

[00:30:29]>> Yeah. I find it, you know, straight characters are the most difficult because you're always looking, what can I say? What can I how can I make this line more interesting?

[00:30:40]>> Whereas sometimes someone has to be the >> bland person walking in.

[00:30:45]>> Yeah.

[00:30:45]>> Because others are more colorful.

[00:30:47]>> Yes.

[00:30:47]>> But playing that you have to have a commitment >> and a discipline for that, you know.

[00:30:53]>> I'm just thinking about Oscar Wild said it just came to my mind. Oh no, that was about Plinka. So that's kind of contrary to what I said, but he said when he was dying on his deathbed, dying is easy.

[00:31:06]Comedy is difficult.

[00:31:08]>> Well, at least >> and he also said, well, looking at the the wallpaper in the room, one of us had to go. It was either me or this wallpaper, >> you know. Yeah.

[00:31:19]>> And yeah, you were saying there about Tennessee Williams earlier. It just came back to me that um it wasn't strea glass managerie.

[00:31:29]>> It's how I got my first job here in Ireland with the peacock in the abbey.

[00:31:34]>> Yeah.

[00:31:34]>> Was doing uh >> a piece out of that.

[00:31:39]>> Yeah.

[00:31:39]>> I can't you know >> I informed you about >> Well, you did darling because you play the role.

[00:31:46]>> Yeah.

[00:31:47]>> I never went to the moon.

[00:31:49]>> I went much further.

[00:31:50]>> I never got to the moon. I went much further >> for time is the longest distance between two places.

[00:31:58]>> Okay, go on. You're going to go off on that now. We'll get lost in it. Go back to >> I want to get round to you spoke about Waldo Williams.

[00:32:04]>> Yeah, but I wanted to ask you a question first. You always ask questions, right?

[00:32:08]What >> what I wanted to know is because when I went back to do Waldo, I sensed or felt a sense of responsibility. M >> I remember you telling me that you did Molly Bloom and there's a huge >> thing about Molly Bloom, Bloom's Day every year and uh what that entails, but you doing it in Pasadena or Hollywood and who walks into the theater but your father and Liam, two that would know a lot about it and >> Well, they would. Come on. Liam would know as well >> possibly. Possibly. Yeah. But did you sense something? Oh, it's different now because >> here are people who' have a different viewpoint on it. I don't >> I think it's simpler than that, you know. It's just somebody from home is observing you. Again, it's easier to lose yourself.

[00:33:06]>> That's a good point.

[00:33:06]>> I always I always find it and it's funny. My sister EA is 100% different in this respect. She loves when she's performing. it's a small intimate audience and she can see people and she can see sort of the whites of their eyes.

[00:33:20]>> I I find that difficult.

[00:33:23]>> I find it much easier to go into a zone when you you can't see anyone. That brings me back to reality. So I guess in that instance, you know, my father and Lean walking into in that case it was it was um yeah, it was Bloom's day and I was portraying the character of Molly Bloom from Ulyses. Um and it brought me back to reality more so it was like okay I'm performing you know instead of losing yourself in a character but you know we over complicate all these things like we over complicate Joyce even actually you know there yes there of course there's a whole you know academic sort of side to it that I I don't profess to know you know can relate to any of that side but the character of Molly Bloom I mean her words reminded me of my aunt and actually the kind of things she would say she's just consciousness.

[00:34:15]>> Yeah. The stream of consciousness. She's just saying things as they occur to her.

[00:34:19]It was a gem of a role to play. Do you remember Siobhan Wilder who came in to interview me for the piece in the British Council website or whatever >> and she told me in London they'd have these symposiums or people coming together to talk about um Joyce and how difficult you know the punctuation of Ulyses and the Dubliners and all of this >> um and everyone there would be types now bearded fellows you pontificating. Well, you will find all this nonsense. And she just turned around and she had studied it, you know, extensively. She said, >> well, I just think it's how people in Dublin speak.

[00:35:03]>> Exactly.

[00:35:04]>> And isn't that a joyous thing to, you know, >> the scene in the pub and they're talking about the guy in Kilman?

[00:35:10]Maybe this isn't the right kind of, but uh so basically he was found in a certain position, let's say, upon death and they talk >> quite upright.

[00:35:19]>> Yeah, upright. let's put it that way and how that h and the whole conversation around that you know it it was just it would happen here in our local pub as well and that's what people miss but can we now >> no I want to I want to ask you a question >> you've asked me a question >> I know but I want to ask you another one and that is with poetry you know because all the clancies were so immersed in poetry and would just bring poems left, right, and center out of the bag.

[00:35:53]>> Did that have an influence on you >> and did it have an influence on your acting?

[00:35:59]>> This is a hard question.

[00:36:02]>> Oh god, how do you answer something like that? Did it have an influence on me? I guess inevitably when something is just around you and you don't think about it and it seeps into the subconscious somehow. Um, yeah, I guess it did. I I can't say that it had an influence on the acting, but although it probably did. Yeah, it probably did in how and as a child, you know, as a child, you're not thinking, "Wow, look at how my dad or my uncle Lim or Tom or Paddyy are putting this across." You're a bit embarrassed by it actually because you can't relate.

[00:36:44]You're looking at them in one light and now they've gone into this zone of Yeah, they're transfixed. Now there's someone else.

[00:36:52]>> But I guess on another level, you are taking all that on, you know, when you go to that other place, you know, >> because you are a great reciter in my you you in my view, you come from that transition. It becomes natural to you.

[00:37:05]>> But I have to say as well in fairness to the Irish educational um you know the way that that we approach literature and poetry in schools in Ireland now. Okay, it's learn off stanza one and two by tomorrow. But there is a lot of poetry and literature thrown at you and there's a lot to learn for our leaving certificate. Now the pros and cons to that you might say that is there really the time to to totally understand what it is we're looking at here. I think it's only later in life really. A lot of us are terrified, aren't we, by by the written word and particularly poetry. I think we're supposed to understand and we don't. where whereas I think as you get older and you live life a little bit more and you've experienced a bit more and you know you know maybe what loss is or or what emotion is on a you know and it's it's a diff it's a different take on it >> but also the the art of the turn of turn of the phrase you know when someone says someone something in a way you thought oh it's like listen to a Bob Dylan line and you go I wish I could have about that, >> you know, someone who's just captured a moment and put it into words and >> this is it.

[00:38:19]>> Perfect way.

[00:38:20]>> Capturing a moment, you know, it's all about that. Whether it's a song, whether it's I mean, you could find it even in in rap in anything, couldn't you?

[00:38:29]>> What songs do you remember them or what do you want to read now?

[00:38:33]>> Yeah. Well, I mean, we were looking at we we've looked at WB Yates, haven't we, a couple of times on the podcast, you know, and one poet that's come to my attention recently is Sheamus Heeney, which I don't know how I missed Sheamus Heeney all these years really. He wasn't a poet that we covered in school. It was WB8.

[00:38:57]It was um Austin Clark. It was Patrick Kavanaaugh. Even Oscar Wild. But Heeney, I don't remember ever looking at any Heene poems.

[00:39:07]>> But it seems to be like >> poems. Don't be people don't say po. We say poems. And a lot of people I notice say poems poems.

[00:39:15]>> We say poems >> poems >> poems. Um and I don't profess to be any great scholar on Sheamus Heenei at all but um some of his po poems appeal to me. I think that's the essence of it for me in Heene being able to um create an atmosphere of a moment and also I I'm drawn to now look he came from >> uh he's renowned poet I mean he won the the Nobel Prize for literature in 95 he's one of the most >> revered loved best loved poets in the world actually >> um and uh you know I as I say I don't profess to know a huge amount about his poetry. But I am drawn and I know he came from Derry uh from a rural farming background in Derry on his father's side and his mother's side it was the the linen so the more industrial side on his on his mother's side um uh so there is nature in his poems of course being from Derry he grew up in the time of the troubles as we call them in in the north of Ireland as well so that he's written about that um uh and he has lectured god all over in the best universities in the world from Oxford to Harvard you know >> what's interesting is there's a parallel there you just immediately said there's that uh influence from nature you know community farming backgrounds rural but also >> somewhat similar to Patrick Kavanaaugh that way but >> Maldo and but also he was you know he had commentary on >> what was happening in a troubling time in the north >> yeah I I don't know much of that side is there in this work what I have read which is really interesting.

[00:41:08]>> It is as a backdrop of course it is inevitably but I am drawn to the poetry in relation to um memory family love um from the perspective of a child actually. Oh, I can I read one of his >> course do.

[00:41:30]>> Well, I put a bit of music on it as started doing.

[00:41:34]>> Okay. So, this one now this is um from a series of of sets actually called uh clearances dedicated to the memory of his mother Margaret Kathleen McCann Heeney. Um, and well, look, I'll I'll read it first because let it speak for itself and then we'll take a look at it afterwards.

[00:41:58]Okay.

[00:42:02]When all the others were away at mass, I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.

[00:42:09]They broke the silence, let fall one by one like solder weeping off the soldiering iron. Cold comforts set between us, things to share, gleaming in a bucket of clean water, and again let fall. Little pleasant splashes from each other's work would bring us to our senses.

[00:42:36]So while the parish priest at her bedside went hammering tongues at the prayers for the dying and some were responding and some were crying.

[00:42:47]I remembered her head bent towards my head, her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives never closer the whole rest of our lives.

[00:43:04]Isn't that beautiful?

[00:43:07]>> It is so beautiful, >> isn't it? Lovely.

[00:43:09]>> Yeah.

[00:43:09]>> And you know, >> why isn't poetry more >> It's so evocative. It's that >> it's that intimate moment spent with his mother. Something as mundane as peeling potatoes.

[00:43:22]>> Do you know something that, you know, we do as as a kind of a a necessary kind of domestic task that has to be done? But in that moment because as he said that uh it was like I was all hers and really she was all mine in that moment. He was the eldest of >> um nine children you know >> and you know to me it's like it goes to show today how different we are you know in in in um in spending time with our children. these big gestures like it's not like you know she was taking them out for pancakes or bringing them to the local fair or whatever buying something every day >> and the poetic in it.

[00:44:13]>> Oh, it's beautiful.

[00:44:14]>> It makes me feel why aren't these pearls of wisdom more forthright in our everyday lives? Because I was listening to James O'Brien, the he's actually from Irish >> descent >> descent, >> but the journalist and someone called in and this fellow was talking about a doctor he knew who loved science, but he also loved the arts.

[00:44:39]>> And he said something I'll never forget.

[00:44:42]He said, >> "Science teaches us how the world works, >> right? But the arts teach us how to live.

[00:44:51]>> I never forget that.

[00:44:52]>> But sometimes it's out of balance, isn't it? Mhm.

[00:44:55]>> these lines, not just reading poetry, listening to poetry, >> but the simplicity of it, the simplicity of capturing the atmosphere of that moment and the intimacy >> that was created and then, you know, him as as the eldest and and and of course, you know, back in Ireland, the 1950s, you didn't have those kind of deep felt conversations.

[00:45:21]>> There was silences. you you didn't need, you know, and he was enlisted to help her out to peel the potatoes, >> right?

[00:45:29]>> But the closeness that he felt to her in that moment >> that that with all of the kids and all the hustlebustle of of the household and getting on with the tasks that one had to do, the sharing of that moment became something really sacred.

[00:45:45]>> The house that was out in every weather.

[00:45:48]This is it. The mother.

[00:45:50]>> Yeah. The mother. And then the and then the contrast of that when she died at her bedside the the priest the how did he put it the h the the hammer and tongs of the prayers which again captures and you've experienced this in Ireland you know when somebody passes it it's it's a beautiful thing but it's also it it almost it's it's ceremonial I guess in a way that you naturally go into decades of the rosary >> and it almost feels Hammond and tongues.

[00:46:22]>> Yes.

[00:46:22]>> It's almost methodical, you know, in and everybody answers back and okay, this is happening. But for him, you know, that was he was brought back to that moment, her head bent towards my head.

[00:46:37]>> Yeah.

[00:46:38]>> And then the contrast of that to her death, you know, the hammers and tongues as opposed to the intimacy and the silences and and the unsaid. It didn't need to be said. No big gestures needed to be made. It was just her and me together.

[00:46:56]>> Beautiful, isn't it?

[00:46:57]>> Does that evoke a song for you in any way? Something about the kitchen.

[00:47:03]>> Yeah. No, it does, but not quite yet cuz I I'd like to do yet another. Can I do another? I know. I know. Just to give a flavor, I guess, of uh of Heene. This is a it's also I was drawn to his poems about childhood really and this one is called the errand and again I think we can all relate to this somebody kind of um teasing you right as an adult to a child. So this was uh his dad and himself. On you go now. Run, son, like the devil, and tell your mother to try to find me a bubble for the spirit level and a new knot for this tie. But still he was glad I know when I stood my ground putting it up to him with a smile that trumped his smile and his fool's errand waiting for the next move in the game. Isn't that lovely?

[00:48:00]>> Isn't it lovely? Do you know that? Yeah.

[00:48:02]The playfulness as a child, you know, the way you'd be, as we'd say in Carrie, coding someone.

[00:48:07]>> Yeah. Do >> you know? I There's something lovely in that. So, do you have something like to finish off now a song that that would evolve?

[00:48:14]>> Well, no, not that particularly, but let's say uh in terms of because we've had some lovely pieces of music, but I guess the whole theme of potatoes and peeling potatoes puts me in mind of a song that's quite uplifting actually.

[00:48:31]>> Okay.

[00:48:32]>> Uh called Kulcan, right? Should we give that a go? You're kind of familiar with it, are you?

[00:48:38]>> Sort of. Yeah.

[00:48:38]>> Yeah. Okay, this was um Mary Black brought this out sometime in the 80s, but it's an old old song.

[00:48:46]>> Dedicate this to Sheamusini then >> to Sheamus. Well, toini and Wallow Williams, but also to all the mummies in Ireland and Wales and beyond who would peel potatoes, that mundane task day in day out for years and years on end. So, >> go on then.

[00:49:04]>> This is in honor of of the spud.

[00:49:08]Well, did you ever make a cannon with a lovely pickle cream with the greens and scallions mingled like a picture in a dream? Did you ever make a hole on top to hold the melted flake of the creamy flavored butter that your mother used to make?

[00:49:27]>> Oh, you did. So you did. So did he. And so did I. And the more I think about aure, the nearer I'm to cry. Oh, weren't the happy days when troules we knew not?

[00:49:42]And our mothers make a canon in a little skillet pot. Well, did you ever make potato cake and box it to the school tucked underneath your rockster with your books, your slate, and rule? And when teacher wasn't looking, sure a great big bite you take of the creamy flavored butter that your mother used to make.

[00:50:07]Oh, you did so you did so did he and so did I. And the more I think about it, the nearer I'm to cry. Oh, weren't the happy days when troules we knew not? and a mother's make canon in a little skillet pot.

[00:50:28]Well, did you ever go a court and boys when the evening sun went down and the moon began a peeping from beyond the hill of town and you wondered down a boring where the cla was seen and you whispered loving praises to your own dear sweeten.

[00:50:47]Oh, you did so you did. So did he. And so did I. And the more I think about it, the nearer I'm to cry. Oh, weren't them the happy days when troubles we knew not. And our mothers made in a little skillet pot.

[00:51:08]Oh, you did so did he. And so did I. And the more I think about aure, the nearer I'm to cry.

[00:51:18]Oh, weren't them the happy days when troubles we knew not? And our mothers made in a little skillet pot.

[00:51:31]>> Whoa.

[00:51:32]>> Do you know what a clue is?

[00:51:35]>> Go on. It's kind of like a leprechaun only he's a bit more um not devious.

[00:51:42]He's a bit more of a a degenerate. He's like a drinking leprechaun, let's say.

[00:51:47]And he he'd hang around um pubs and breweries kind of haunting the place.

[00:51:52]>> And where's he from?

[00:51:54]>> And where's he from?

[00:51:55]>> Oh, sure. Anywhere. Anywhere there's a pub or a brewery, you'd find at >> Well, there you go.

[00:52:01]>> Join us again on Clancy's Kitchen.

[00:52:04]Foreign