It's with O'Leary in the grave...

A Crock of Gold, a Greasy Till and a rake of Serpents

Goodness and kindness are, perhaps, beyond wisdom. Is it not possible that the ultimate end is music and gaiety and a dance of joy? Wisdom is the oldest of all things. Wisdom is all head and no heart. - James Stephens, A Crock of Gold

What to say? What crossroads are we at? It’s all in this poem, written 124 years ago. If Yeats was worried then, what would he be, now? Here we are all scribbling away on Saint Patrick’s Day, but will we say anything that lasts?

September 1913

What need you, being come to sense,

But fumble in a greasy till

And add the halfpence to the pence

And prayer to shivering prayer, until

You have dried the marrow from the bone;

For men were born to pray and save:

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,

The names that stilled your childish play,

They have gone about the world like wind,

But little time had they to pray

For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,

And what, God help us, could they save?

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread

The grey wing upon every tide;

For this that all that blood was shed,

For this Edward Fitzgerald died,

And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,

All that delirium of the brave?

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,

And call those exiles as they were

In all their loneliness and pain,

You’d cry, ‘Some woman’s yellow hair

Has maddened every mother’s son’:

They weighed so lightly what they gave.

But let them be, they’re dead and gone,

They’re with O’Leary in the grave.

• -William Butler Yeats

I came to the resolve that the attempt was not only worth trying, but should I be tried in the very near future, if we wanted at all to keep our flag flying; for I was sure as of my own existence that if another decade was allowed to apss without an endeavour of some kind or another to shake off an unjust yoke, the Irish people would sink into lethargy from which it would be impossible for any patriot to arounse them… - James Stephens

Women and birds are able to see without turning their heads, and that is indeed a necessary provision for they are both surrounded by enemies. - James Stephens

It is a story told by an Englishman that struck me most in the medley of Patrick rant on You Tube. I love how he tells it. Interestingly, Ireland was a centre for serpent worship, and that is the literalness of it. Patrick ‘sorted’ that out. Remember that Patrick went back to Somerset in England when his ‘work’ was done in 5th Century and was Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey. He worked there to make them a better organised community, since he figured he’d sorted out the Irish by this time. The good old Welshman who’d been captured in Wales by Irish slave owners. The irony of it. He retired to Glastonbury in where he was Abbot until he died somewhere not too far from there. You see, he wasn’t an Irishman at all.

Rare were snakes in Ireland during medieval times it was believed that wood from an Irish tree could repel serpents, and bringing a snake into Eriú would cause its death. Even  being near an Irish stone was believed to kill snakes.

It was believed that Niul, husband of the Pharaoh's daughter Scota, had a son, Gael, who was bitten by a serpent in the wilderness. Brought before Moses, he was not only healed, but was told that no serpent should have power wherever he or his descendants should dwell. So that might explain it. Even centuries before Patrick was brought to Ireland as a slave, Solinus noted the absense of snakes here.

It was the cult of serpent workshop that Patrick may have expelled. This is still found in India, where in every Himalayan village you will find offerings to the Naga serpent beings.It’s a pre-Vedic tradition. Snake cult/ Naga worship in India still exists and it is directly connected to wells, rivers and streams. Naga worship was the earliest religion of Kashmir, preceding Indo-Aryan immigration. All over Northern India, temples are built near streams and rivers.‘Naga’ stands for spring, and ‘nagin’ for small spring. Surely that is where the Irish word naggin,  as in a small bottle of spirits, hails from? Nagas reside in bodies of water. The Sanskrit word Naga is ‘snake’, specifically the cobra, representing fertility and the source of life. 

Throughout almost all ancient pagan lands there was the adoration of the serpent idol. Everywhere we look in the ancient world these can be found, and still they can be found in modern day China and India, in the form of dragon-gods and Rivaan, king of the serpents.

St Justin Martyr's First Apology outlines in chapter twenty seven the guilt of exposing children to serpent worship practices:

"and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods, and along with each of those whom you esteem gods there is painted a serpent, a great symbol and mystery"

When armies marched to war, they carried the banner of the serpent. They are péist, god-worms who live in lakes or in wells or deep, cavernous holes in the ground. Worshipped by druids and magicians, they demanded sacrifice. Some said they were the Nephilim who had somehow survived the cleansing flood.

Long before Saint Patrick came to Ireland, Fionn Mac Cumahaill had songs sung of his hunts for serpentine creatures-

“It resembled a great mound —
Its jaws were yawning wide
There might lie concealed, though great its fury,
A hundred champions in its eye-pits.

Taller in height than eight men,
Was its tail, which was erect above its back
Thicker was the most slender part of its tail,
Than the forest oak which was sunk by the flood.”

And in Lough Cuan

“We found a serpent in that lake.
His being there was no gain to us
On looking at it as we approached,
Its head was larger than a hill.

Larger than any tree in the forest.
Were its tusks of the ugliest shape
Wider than the portals of a city
Were the ears of the serpent as we approached.”

More were taken by his blade in Lough Cuilinn and Lough Neagh, in Lough Rea, as well as the blue serpent of Eirne, and one at Howth. He killed two at Glen Inny, one in the murmuring Bann, another at Lough Carra, and beheaded a fearful creature which cast fire at him from Lough Leary.

“A serpent there was in the Lough of the mountain,
Which caused the slaughter of the Fianna
Twenty hundred or more
It put to death in one day.”

The serpent-stone, a flinty circle, was used to cure illness or cast spells such as the one used by the druid Mogh Ruith in his battle against King Cormac, when he cast it into the river after praising it most worshipfully and it turned into a snake, strangling his enemies.

When the Vikings came to Ireland aboard in dragonships, the serpent on the prow, they told and tales of Jörmungandr the world serpent, who would destroy the earth if he ever awoke. King Brian Borúmna saw them off.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

A man called Windele, of Kilkenny, wrote:

“Even as late as the eleventh century, we have evidence of the prevalence of the old religion in the remoter districts, and in many of the islands on our western coasts. Many of the secondary doctrines of Druidism hold their ground at this very day as articles of faith.

Connected with these practices (belteine, &c.), is the vivid memory still retained of once universal Ophiolatreia, or serpent worship, and the attributing of supernatural powers and virtues to particular animals, such as the bull, the white and red cow, the boar, the horse, the dog, &c., the memory of which has been perpetuated in our topographical denominations.”

Serpents might be hiding, here in deep, watery holes. There may be ones that Patrick missed. Watch out.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash