From An Claidheamh Soluis, August 8th, 1903.
One must beware of approaching a singer like Colm Wallace in a severely critical spirit, primed with all the stock epithets of the newspaper reviewer. This is no professional poet; indeed, scarcely a formal poet at all. Here is a naïve, sprightly, good-humouredly satirical personality, a peasant living among peasants, who sings, like the lark, from very joyousness and tunefulness of soul; sings because to sing is a necessity of his gladsome nature. He has no ‘philosophy of life’—not he; he warbles to while away a summer’s day, to ‘shorten the road’ on a tramp across the bogland, to repay the hospitality of a bean tighe who has given him a night’s cheer. The ordinary, prosaic events of his daily life, the sights and experiences he encounters on his way to a fair,—such are the inspirations of his verse: he makes a bráicín to shelter under during a shower; he overhears a conversation as he passes along the road; he meets with a churlish reception in a house where he had expected hospitality; and, as he goes faring on his way, more as caitheamh aimsire than anything else, he weaves the experience into verse, and embellishes it with a hundred odd fancies, which, in the case of a more formal poet, one would rightly set down as grotesque extravagance.
In poetry thus, so to speak, incidentally produced, it would be absurd to expect deep thoughts on life and death and destiny; passion, fire, majesty; great technical skill, or even uniform melody of verse. Much of Colum’s poetry lacks real inspiration, much of it, from the technical standpoint, limps hopelessly. Yet good qualities it does possess—indeed, must possess to have achieved its undoubted popularity throughout a whole county—a certain energy and vivacity, a tuneful swing, a whimsical playfulness of fancy.
The odd thing is that the poet’s own personality has, to so large an extent, dropped out of history. Less productive than Raftery, he has, here and there, reached a height which Raftery never reached; yet, Raftery’s figure stands out largely in the folk-history of 19th-century Connacht, whilst, though Colum’s name is still widely remembered, and some of his sayings repeated round firesides within miles of which he has never set foot, people seemed to have forgotten that the old man was still alive. How lonely would have been his death, but for the accidents—were they accidents?—which led to his discovery by ‘An Claidheamh Soluis’!
Of Colum the man, let us give our readers a glimpse. Everyone knows that the south-western extremity of the most Irish-speaking tract in Ireland is the group of islands of which Gorumna and Lettermullen are the chief. In Lettermullen Colum Wallace was born on May 2nd, 1796. His childhood and boyhood were passed in the stirring times when men’s eyes were strained across the sea to watch the coming of Napoleon. Colum vividly recalls the suppressed excitement of the days when—
‘Cuirfimid an ċoróin ar Ḃónapáirt’
was the watchword throughout the Gaedhealtacht. He distinctly remembers hearing the news of the Battle of Waterloo, whilst the election of O’Connell for Clare is in his reminiscences a comparatively recent event. Colum was a child of two when the French landed at Killala in ‘98; a bare-footed gasúr of seven when Robert Emmet sallied from the depot in Marshalsea-lane; a man of 31 when Catholic Emancipation was achieved; already past the prime of life in the Famine Year; well past the three-score and ten limit in the Fenian days; an aged man, on the verge of a century, when the Gaelic League was founded. Of all these movements ripples found their way into his placid life, and more than one of them finds an echo in his poetry. What an autobiography he could write!
A mason and sawyer by trade, Colum left Gorumna at a comparatively early age. He wandered much, chiefly in the West. One of his most treasured recollections is his having seen Raftery playing the fiddle on the Bóthar Mór in Galway. He spent a year in Westport, from which he went to Tullamore. We next find him in Kilrush, where he spent eleven years. From Kilrush he returned home, and, for practical purposes, did not again quit his native district until about two years ago, when he found it necessary to claim the shelter of the Workhouse, which—thanks to the readers of ‘An Claidheamh Soluis’—ceased to be his home on Saturday last.1 Colum was twice married, his second wife dying, a very old woman, a few years ago. He had one son, who died at 21.
It has been written somewhere that the ‘Cúirt an tSrutháin Bhuidhe’ celebrated in Colum’s most famous song was the house which he built for himself and his wife when he first married. The ‘Cúirt,’ however, was a much humbler structure even than this. One day—about forty years ago, he thinks—Colum was overtaken by a shower somewhere in Lettercallow, near Gorumna, and, in order to shelter himself, he threw a few sticks across some big boulders, and across these again, a few scraws. This poorheen or bráicín he amused himself by calling ‘Cúirt an tSrutháin Bhuidhe’—it happened to be close to a stream. Here is how he sings of the ‘Cúirt’:—
‘Tá an ċúirt seo déanta i lár na tíre, ‘s moltar léi an bárr,
Ó ṫeaċ an ríog, ó ḃaile an draoi, ⁊ ó ‘ċ uile ċaisleán árd;—
Ní le draoiḋeaċt a rinneaḋ í, aċt le obair stuamḋa láṁ—
Craoiḃín grinn dé’n Ġobán Saor,—tá Colum i n-a ceann.’2
There are both energy and imagination here, and the poet’s description of himself as ‘a pleasant little branch from the Gobán Saor’ is delightful. In an earlier part of the poem, Colum represents the potentates of the world as struck dumb with admiration of the beauties of the ‘Cúirt’: Queen Victoria is filled with jealousy at its magnificence, the King of France plans an expedition to inspect it, the Queen of Sardinia comes across the sea, accompanied by her fleet, to marvel at it. In its hyperbole the whole piece is characteristically Irish.
‘An Bás’ was composed about the same time as ‘Cúirt an tSrutháin Bhuidhe.’ It is by no means as gruesome in subject as its title would suggest. ‘An Bás’ was the nick-name of a tailor well known at the period throughout Connemara. One evening Colum chanced to come to a house in which ‘An Bás’ was working. At night-time other guests turned up, and, accommodation being scarce, Colum was put to sleep in the same bed as ‘An Bás.’ When the woman of the house heard that Colum and ‘An Bás’ were together, she said she would give Colum a quart of poitín on condition that he made a song about ‘An Bás’ before bed-time on the following day. Next morning at the breakfast-table Colum sat facing ‘An Bás,’ and had at him with the song. Throughout the poem there is a whimsical play on the nick-name of the tailor. The framework of the piece is quite traditional. Encountering the strange bed-fellow, Colum asks—
‘An tú Jupiter ḃí fad ó ann, nó Hercules ḃí ceannusaċ,
Nó Neptune, Dia na fairrge, ṫáinic ó’n muir féin?’
The tailor replies that he is neither Jupiter nor Hercules, nor yet Goll Mac Móirne,—he is ‘An Bás.’ On this declaration interesting developments ensue. History adds that Colum got the poitín.
A poem of a higher order than either ‘Cúirt an tSrutháin Bhuidhe’ or ‘An Bás’ is ‘Amhrán an Tae.’ This is a dramatic little song turning on the mutual recriminations of a husband and wife, the one extravagantly fond of tobacco and the other inordinately addicted to tea:—
‘Tráṫnóna Dia Saṫairn ag dul faoi do’n ġréin,
Seaḋ ċonnaic mé lánaṁain i ngarrḋa leó féin,—
Ḃí an ḃean is í go caiṫiseaċ ag caint ar an tae,
‘S níor ṁaiṫ leis an ḃfear í ḃeiṫ ‘tráċt air!’
The woman complains that the husband is smoking her out of house and home; the husband retorts that the cause of their poverty is the wife’s extravagant expenditure on tea. Both profess profound concern for the welfare of the children. The debate is kept up animatedly, the respective praises of tea and tobacco being vigorously sung in turn. In the end recourse is had to law, with disastrous results to the already small exchequer, and the poet concludes with the cynical touch—
‘Táim cinnte gur cailleaḋ na páistí!’
1 August 1st, 1903.
2 We now know that these lines are really the composition of Michael O’Clogherty, a neighbour of Colum’s. To him are due the final three verses of the song.