Maiden Street Wake by Michel Hartnett (1968)

I watched the hand

until a finger moved

and veins above the index knuckle

pulsed.

That was his last movement.

She had a band

of tan tobacco juice

upon her chin.  Her few teeth buckled.

That was all the grief she showed.

In public.

Columned and black with women in shawls,

yellow and pillared with penny candles,

bright-eyed and blue-toed with children

in their summer sandals,

that was the mud house, talkative and lit.

In the bed, the breeding ground and cot,

he wore his best blouse

and would have seen

the finest teacups in his life.

But he was white

as an alabaster Christ

and cold to kiss.

We shuffled round and waited.

Our respects were paid.

And then we ate soft biscuits

and drank lemonade.

Commentary

The Irish are a people well-versed in tragedy, suffering, grief and sorrow.  Beset by famine, poverty and colonization, the history of Ireland is one that is steeped in immense adversity and sadness. Perhaps this is why the Irish are so particularly adept at mourning the loss of a loved one and saying goodbye. This may explain Hartnett’s fascination with the unique customs and traditions surrounding the Irish Wake, a tradition which is one of the most distinctive and renowned funeral traditions worldwide.  Needless to say, alcohol and music, both significant staples of Irish culture, are often heavily featured at a wake. While an Irish Wake is first and foremost a final farewell to the one departed, it can also serve as a potent and bracing reminder to those in attendance that they are still alive and a part of the world. This unique mixture of melancholy and mirth is partly why the Irish Wake is so famous the world over. Such an atmosphere is especially likely if the deceased was elderly or ill for a long period of time.  Often the wake of a younger person or a child is a far more sombre affair.

Hartnett’s, Collected Poems, contain several ‘Wake Poems’, including, of course, a wake that he missed, that of his grandmother Bridget Halpin, whom he immortalised in Death of an Irishwoman.  He was in Morocco at the time of her death in 1965.  There is also his beautiful epitaph for John Kelly; In Memoriam Sheila Hackett, where he laments the passing of an early childhood friend; and reveries on the death of his young infant brother, For Edward Hartnett, ‘All the death room needs …’; and ‘How goes the night boy? …’, in which he plays a ten-year-old Fleance to his father’s Banquo, as they mourn the loss of his sister Patricia in 1951.  Both Edward and Patricia died as very young infants, a not unusual occurrence in the late 40s, and early 50s.

At this time in Newcastle West there were over fifty public houses in the town and Maiden Street had its fair share such as Flanagans, McMahons, Cremins, Ahernes, Houghs, O’Gormans, and Flynns.  However, custom and culture dictated that when there was a death, what was known as ‘The Corpse House’ became, in effect, another public house for the duration of the funeral obsequies.  This explains why the young Hartnett had such ready access to the events surrounding the death of a neighbour in the close-knit community of the Coole and Lower Maiden Street.  The death described here stands out because it seems that the young Hartnett arrives in time to witness the old man draw his last breath,

I watched the hand

until a finger moved

and veins above the index knuckle

pulsed.

That was his last movement.

The dead man’s wife is also described, and she comes across as being stoic and somewhat overwhelmed as she has been thrust into the limelight at this public event.

She had a band

of tan tobacco juice

upon her chin. 

This poem, Maiden Street Wake, was written in 1968 and so, therefore, it is a memory poem, probably from the late 50s.  The young Hartnett was present at this wake, and it may have awakened in him his near obsession with death and wakes and funerals that he revisited many times, especially for his friends in Maiden Street.  This wake is reminiscent of the wake that is described so brilliantly in the first sequence of The Retreat of Ita Cagney.  In the stage directions for an unpublished dramatic version/libretto of the same story, Hartnett describes the scene, obviously harking back to those wakes he had visited in his youth: ‘There is a sudden confused noise of prayer, glasses clinking, sneezes, melodeon music, a puff of smoke, sobs’.  Later, the stage directions relate, ‘The other door opens: smoke, glass-noise, music, sneezes, sobs, rising and falling prayer-sounds’ and again ‘There is the sound of glasses tinkling, praying, sobbing, sneezing.  The melodeon takes up the theme, and a puff of blue smoke comes from the doorway’.

Hartnett places this poem, Maiden Street Wake, alongside his poem Prisoners (both written in 1968) as the only two poems in a limited edition (250 copies) joint venture publication between Deerfield Press and Gallery Press that was published in 1977.  Both poems are illustrated by Timothy Engelland and all copies are individually signed by the author.  It seems that both poems were in his mind as he embarked on writing The Retreat of Ita Cagney / Cúlú Íde, the first major works, along with Farewell to English, undertaken on his return to West Limerick.  Both poems celebrate their 50th Anniversary this year!

Maiden Street Wake may be an account of yet another random wake, one of the many wakes that the very young Hartnett witnessed and attended in Maiden Street during his childhood.  Whatever the case may be, the old traditional Irish wake, with its old women keeners, flickering candles, music and drink, tobacco and snuff, as well as ‘soft biscuits and lemonade’ for the children, is used by Hartnett to set the scene for us in the poetic version of The Retreat of Ita Cagney. It is obvious that these events made a lasting impression on the young teenage Hartnett and those events fuelled his imagination and gave rise to some of his best poetry.

He describes the scene at ‘The Corpse House’, a mud-walled cabin in Lower Maiden Street.  The dead man is laid out in his bedroom, surrounded by ‘women in shawls, and young children from the street in their ‘summer sandals’. His bed, ‘the breeding ground and cot’, is surrounded by ‘penny candles’ and people file by to pay their last respects.  The family have made a great effort to cater for the influx of visitors and the best and ‘finest teacups’ have been brought out for the occasion.  The poet uses a beautiful simile to describe the corpse, he is like ‘an alabaster Christ’ laid out in the tomb.  For the young Hartnett viewing this traditional custom there is a sense of anticlimax at the end: after waiting their turn, they ‘shufffled round’ and were rewarded later in the meagre kitchen with ‘soft biscuits’ and a glass of the famous local soft drink, Nash’s red lemonade.

The Irish wake has long been the subject of poems, songs, films and stage plays.  Hartnett has written several poems in which he explores the old custom in a very sympathetic way.  These ‘Wake Poems’,  his poems such as A Small Farm and the many poems written to honour his grandmother, Bridget Halpin, all attest to a poet exploring the past, its customs and traditions while seeking to enhance their value and importance lest they be lost.