We're all Green Fools now

There has been a great and welcome revival of interest in Mother Nature during the last decade or so or in what we now call the environment. Motivated by fear of what we might be doing to destroy the creation that sustains us, people have reluctantly begun to examine their lifestyles. We have become aware of what is termed our ‘carbon foot-print’ or our individual contribution to the pollution of the atmosphere. Pollution at ground level continues to be a problem despite the best efforts of teachers and schools to persuade pupils to respect their surroundings and living area. The consumption of drugs or illegal substances is another unacknowledged form of pollution and disrespect for creation. As for acknowledging or dealing with the effects of the pollution that is to be found or in print or visual media, or the more general pollution of the human spirit; that day has not dawned yet.

Despite all this emphasis on the created world or environment, there is a radical disconnection with the cycle of the seasons and the rhythm of rural life. The flight from the land that comes with industrialisation has largely untied us from the seasonal markers by which our ancestors found their pilgrim way through life. It has also disconnected us from a profound sense of awe and mystery when faced with the natural world, as seen on a starry night, or during a summer thunderstorm, for example. The daily miracles of the soil, that turn rainwater into wine over the course of a harvest season, or that turn delicate-shelled eggs into powerful eagles in the span of a few months are seldom seen or reflected on by a generation that remains voluntarily chained to its favourite technology-toys.

One of the greatest markers of the season in this locality was what the Church calls the Feast of the Assumption or what was known commonly as ‘the fifteenth of August’. It may have had its origins in a Celtic harvest festival called Lúnasa which in turn was absorbed by the Christian tradition of Our Lady being the first to fully share in the harvest of redemption. It became a great marker of the natural cycle and of the social season and was celebrated with Patrúns and festivals all over the country. In the North, it took on the form of an alternative community celebration, being the Catholic counter-response to the Twelfth of July. Nationalist bands often paraded through Northern towns, indistinguishable from their Orange counterparts other than in their colour-code and Queen.

The village of Blackrock became as Mecca or Rome for the day for those who lived within striking distance. Many of its visitors would have fulfilled their sense of religious observance by attending Mass and by visiting the local shrine at Lady Well beforehand. They may even have attended the Patrún the night before when the water in the well was said to rise miraculously. Observing the Patrún was a fairly tame practice by then, though it had not tamed sufficiently to have the blessing of the local clergy that it once again enjoys.

Patrick Kavanagh wrote humourously and beautifully about the practice in his short story ‘Pilgrimage’, taken from ‘The Green Fool’. ‘Every year all the neighbours around me went there and carried home with them bottles of its sacred waters. These waters were used in times of sickness whether of human or beast. Some folk went barefoot and many went, wearing in their boots the traditional pea or pebble of self-torture…The horse-cart was filled with people, three seat-boards, which seated three fat women, the driver, two children and myself. One of the fat women suggested that there wasn’t sufficient room on the seat-board. Beside me was a pile of bottles of all sizes shapes and colours…The field of the Well belonged to the Protestant Rector and to get to the Well, there was no right of way. The Rector was a bit of a bigot, as was everybody else at the time for that matter. He locked the gate and to reach the Well, it was necessary to climb over a brambly hedge. Each briar wound inflicted on a woman’s face or leg meant a curse for the Rector’.

‘Like medieval pilgrims, some were going round on their bare knees making the Stations. Some others were doing a bit of courting under the pilgrim cloak. There was a rowdy element too, pegging clods at the prayers and shouting. A few knots of men were arguing politics. I overheard two fellows making a deal over a horse’. Kavanagh goes on to tell of “Bullah-Wullah’s” mother, who was a prominent character at the proceedings and of the feast that the nocturnal pilgrims enjoyed as the ceremonies ended as they proceeded home by moonlight. On return, he described the pilgrims as, ‘weary in body and mind but in soul, perhaps as fresh as rain-green grass. Our Lady was a real Lady and human. She was not displeased, I knew, because some who pilgrimed in Her name were doubters and some cynics and a lot of vulgar sightseers. She is kind and no doubt she enjoyed the comic twists in the pageant around Lady Well’.