On Raglan Road

Baggot Street Bridge with Parsons bookshop in the background on the Grand Canal, Dublin

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.


On Raglan Road - Patrick Kavanagh 1946

People make big cities their own and give them a human scale and personal reference points by dividing them into villages. There is an urban village, which you will not see on maps of Dublin, known as Baggotonia, that village of lanes and gardens from the Grand Canal to Ballsbridge. Basically, the old Pembroke Township developed by the Pembroke’s (Earls of Wilton and Pembroke) Irish agents the Herbert’s from 1820 to 1838, just at the end of the Georgian and the beginnings of the Victorian age. This chronology ignores one of the more interesting British monarchs, William IV who reigned from 1830 to 1837. His reign saw several reforms: the poor law was updated, child labour restricted, slavery abolished in nearly all the British Empire, and the Reform Act in 1832 refashioned the British electoral system. There is a particular Irish interest for he had 10 children with the Irish actress Dorothea Bland (known as Mrs Jordan) but on his death his niece Princess Victoria of Kent became Queen as he had no legitimate heirs and his eldest son became Earl of Munster, his other offspring taking the surname FitzClarence and receiving titles. The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is a direct descendant of their sixth child, Elizabeth FitzClarence. On his accession in 1830 as was the custom an election was called and Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington lost his position as Prime Minister.

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Waterloo Road, Dublin

Arthur Wellesley was Irish, the son of Lord Mornington, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and he had been an MP in the Irish Parliament which was abolished by the Act of Union in 1800. Two Irishmen called Wellesley were responsible for setting the course of British history in the 19th Century. Arthur by defeating Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815 at Waterloo and his elder brother Richard who established the rule of the British Crown in India and was later British Foreign Secretary and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The Duke of Wellington was not entirely proud of his native land for when asked did he consider himself Irish he spat in reply “My good man, because Jesus was born in a stable does not make him a horse!” Nevertheless this member of the Protestant Ascendancy and hugely reactionary Tory Prime Minister was widely commemorated in Ireland not least by the huge Wellington Memorial in the Phoenix Park. And when the Pembroke estate came to layout its land south of the Grand Canal at its heart were five imposing roads commemorating the “Iron Duke” lined with large houses which unlike their Georgian predecessors were set back from the road which with their great granite steps to their Piano Nobile gave them an imposing presence. The first great avenue was called Waterloo Road, the second Wellington Road after our local hero and the three off that were called Elgin, Clyde and Raglan after his commanders at Waterloo.





These roads are the core of Baggotonia which along with the stretch of the Grand Canal bordering it will always be associated with the Poet and Writer, Patrick Kavanagh. It is an area which became known for its bohemian inhabitants including this Sage who lived at one time on Waterloo Road and relished both its village feel and the fact it was only 10 minutes walk home from the centre of Dublin after a night out. Baggotonia has a High Street where its inhabitants meet, talk and replenish themselves, Upper Baggot Street, south of the Grand Canal. Some Dublin geography – the city centre is defined by the arcs of two canals, to the north the Royal Canal which goes from Spencer Dock on the River Liffey at Dublin to the River Shannon at Cloondara in County Longford and to the south the Grand Canal which joins the River Liffey at Grand Canal Dock and continues through to the River Shannon at Shannon Harbour in Co. Offaly with various branches, including a link to the River Barrow waterway at Athy. The centre is then divided into “Northside” which is from the Liffey to the Royal Canal and “Southside” which is from the river to the Grand Canal. In Dublin where a street is divided into “Lower” and “Upper” the “Lower” is the end nearer the Liffey and the “Upper” is the end furthest from the Liffey. Thus you walk over Baggot Street Bridge into Upper Baggot Street into Baggotonia leaving Dublin 2 and entering Dublin 4, the area which houses Embassies, the Royal Dublin Society where the famous Dublin Horse Show is held, leafy Herbert Park, the seaside “village” of Sandymount and the Rugby Stadium at Lansdowne Road.




Upper Baggot Street south of the Grand Canal, the High Street of Baggotonia



Baggot Street Upper has changed since Patrick Kavanagh’s time with the Royal Dublin Hospital now converted to upmarket apartments but still generally has the same mix of pubs, boutiques, coffee bars, restaurants and real shops such as Meagher’s Chemist and Weir’s Hardware store. If one place captured its essence for forty years from 1949 to 1989, Parsons Bookshop was a Dublin literary landmark and meeting place. Situated on the crest of Baggot Street’s Grand Canal Bridge, it defined the Bohemian quarter of writers and artists known as Baggotonia. Owned by May O’Flaherty who was ably assisted by Mary King and three other ladies, Parsons Bookshop played a major role in Ireland’s literary and cultural development. In this affectionate chronicle of a very special establishment, Brendan Lynch describes the Dublin literary and artistic scene from the fifties to the eighties. Parsons was a second home to Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh, and other literary customers included Flann O’Brien, Liam O’Flaherty, Frank O’Connor, Mary Lavin and Seamus Heaney. Artist customers ranged from Louis le Brocquy, Patrick Scott, Patrick Pye, Michael Kane and Brian Bourke to the ultimate Bohemian, Owen Walsh, who occupied a local studio-cum-boudoir for the lifespan of the bookshop. I am the proud owner of his son Ronan Walsh’s 1983 painting “Eugenie on a Bicycle.” Archbishops of various denominations also worshipped at this shrine to literature, while political visitors ranged from senators and government ministers to Taoisigh Garrett Fitzgerald and Jack Lynch.

“Parsons, where one met as many interesting writers on the floor of the shop as on the shelves!” — Mary Lavin.


Lower Baggot Street

Patrick Kavanagh was born on 21 October 1904, in Mucker townland, Inniskeen parish, Co. Monaghan, the son of James Kavanagh, a small farmer with sixteen acres who was also a cobbler, and Bridget Quinn. He attended Kednaminsha National School from 1909 to 1916 and worked on the family farm after leaving school. For twenty years he lived a life as an ordinary young Irish farmer of the period, toiling for pocket money in fields he expected some day to inherit. However, he was often more interested in reading than farming and the farm horse 'Oul Glug' "knew the way home better than he did." Kavanagh began writing verses at a young age. He began submitting poems to local and national newspapers. He became increasingly dissatisfied with life as a small farmer, and in 1938 he left Inniskeen for London and remained there for about five months. In 1939 he finally settled in Dublin.

Kavanagh lived in Pembroke Road., Dublin, close to Raglan Road, from 1946 (the date of the poem) until 1958 and then at 19 Raglan Road itself from 1958 to 1959.




Raglan Road

His earliest poems were printed by the Dundalk Democrat and Weekly Independent, in1928; three more were printed by George Russell (Æ) in The Irish Statesman during 1929-30. In 1931 he walked to Dublin to meet Russell, who introduced him to Frank O'Connor. Ploughman and Other Poems was published by Macmillan in 1936; soon after he moved to London in search of literary work but returned to Ireland when this failed to offer a living. An autobiography, The Green Fool appeared in 1938 but was withdrawn after a libel threat from Oliver Gogarty. A long poem, perhaps his best, The Great Hunger, appeared in the London-based Horizon in 1942; its tragic statement of the mental and sexual frustrations of rural life was recognised as masterly by Frank O'Connor and George Yeats, who issued it in Dublin as a Cuala Press pamphlet; it seems also to have attracted the attention of the police and censors. Another fine long poem, Lough Derg, was written the same year though not published until 1971.

A Soul for Sale (1947) was followed by Tarry Flynn (1948), more realistic than the former autobiography, and called by the author 'not only the best but the only authentic account of life as it was lived in Ireland this century'; it was briefly banned.


Writers on Sandymount Strand; L-R; John Ryan, Anthony Cronin,Flann O'Brien, Patrick Kavanagh

Kavanagh first sang On Raglan Road (in public) sometime between August 1945 and April 1947; when he was employed on the Standard newspaper. Writer Benedict Kiely (1919-2007), then also working for the Standard, recalled Kavanagh walking into the office one day and saying, ‘there, sing that to that [On Raglan Road] to The Dawning of the Day’. The song, often known simply as "Raglan Road," has since been sung by the Dubliners, Van Morrison, Sinéad O'Connor, Dire Straits, Billy Bragg, Roger Daltrey and Loreena McKennitt among others.



Writer Benedict Kiely tells Ciarán Mac Mathúna how he thinks he was the first person to see the words of 'Raglan Road' written out and how Kavanagh asked him if he thought the poem could be sung to the air of 'The Dawning of the Day'.
1st Broadcast: 10 January 1979; Presenter: Ciarán MacMathúna .

Luke Kelly of the Dubliners explains how he met Patrick Kavanagh only once in the Bailey pub in Dublin in 1966. During this encounter Kavanagh told him he had a song for him. The song was 'On Raglan Road'. For many people Luke Kelly's interpretation of 'On Raglan Road' is the definitive one. Luke Kelly performs 'On Raglan Road' accompanied by Al O'Donnell. On Raglan Road’s melody is an almost perfect match for the traditional 18th century air Fáinne Geal an Lae - “the dawning of the day”, translated by Edward Walsh (1805-50),

On a mossy bank I sat me down, this maiden by my side,
With gentle words I courted her; I asked her “be my bride”,
She said "young man don't bring me shame" and swiftly turned away,
And the sun’s first light, pursued her flight at the dawning of the day.

Kavanagh certainly knew The Dawning of the Day, which had been popularised by McCormack’s 1934 recording, and he himself matched lyric to melody. The structure of both songs is very similar, as is the theme of lost love. Kavanagh also retained the key refrain, “the dawning of the day” which is name checked in the last line. There are also similarities of phrasing: for example; “with gentle words I courted her” is surely echoed in Kavanagh’s “I gave her poems to say”?


Locks on the Grand Canal seen from Baggot Street Bridge

It was first published as a poem in the Irish Press on 3 October 1946 under the title "Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away." Peter Kavanagh, Kavanagh's brother said that "it was written about Patrick's girlfriend Hilda [Moriaty] but to avoid embarrassment he used the name of my girlfriend in the title." Patrick Kavanagh met Hilda Moriarty in 1944. The inspiration for the song, Hilda Moriarty from Dingle, Co. Kerry, was a medical student at University College, Dublin. “On an autumn day” in 1944, Kavanagh noticed her walking to college on Raglan Road, where he was living in lodgings at number 19, while subletting his flat round the corner at 62 Pembroke Road. Though he couldn’t afford to furnish or heat it, Kavanagh had rented the large apartment to impress the family of his then-fiancée, twenty-three-year-old Nola O’Driscoll, a daughter of Michael Collins’ sister Margaret. The engagement didn’t last very long but Nola never married anyone else. Because number 19 was then a boarding house, which imposed tiresome constraints on his independent lifestyle, Kavanagh stayed in the street that he would immortalize for only some six months: though he did move back there again in 1958. Strangely, the present-day tourist wall-plague makes no reference to his residency there in 1944-45, when and where he composed his best known work. The house is part of a substantial red-brick terrace.




Pembroke Road

Most of his earnings came from freelance journalism, which, owing to his abrasive style, did not lend itself to security of employment. Always independent-minded, always confident of his opinions, and never shy of expressing them, Kavanagh rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. As he became better known but no better off, he became embittered almost to the point of paranoia. His financial status was not helped by his complete inability to handle money and, from the late 1940s until his death, his increasing reliance on alcohol.


Patrick Kavanagh

Despite working as a journalist, Kavanagh was not an enthusiast for the genre, writing;

“It is impossible to read the daily press without being diverted from reality. You are full of enthusiasm for the eternal verities - life is worth living, and then out of sinful curiosity you open a newspaper. You are disillusioned and wrecked.”

With his brother Peter and financed by him, Patrick edited a paper, Kavanagh's Weekly, subtitled 'a journal of literature and politics' (13 issues; 12 April-5 July 1952); he contributed most of the articles and poems, usually under pseudonyms. In 1952 a Dublin paper, The Leader, published a profile which depicted him as an alcoholic sponger, and he sued for libel. He was harshly cross-examined by John A. Costello, defending The Leader, when the case came to trial in 1954, and he lost. The following year he was diagnosed with cancer and had a lung removed. My father once met him but in truth it was not too difficult to meet him as he was always being “introduced” in pubs if you looked like you might buy him a drink.

At this low point he experienced a sort of personal and poetic renewal; Recent Poems (1958), (Peter Kavanagh, Hand Press, New York), was followed by Come Dance with Kitty Stobling (London, Longmans, 1960); these contain some of his best known shorter poems. His Collected Poems were published in 1964 by MacGibbon and Kee who also brought out Collected Pruse (1967). Tarry Flynn was dramatised by P.J. O'Connor and produced by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and in Dundalk in 1967.

Kavanagh did not take kindly to literary rivals and as the star of Brendan Behan began to rise, the relationship between the two writers degenerated into unforgiving hatred, particularly on Kavanagh’s part. For a time, Behan had everything that Kavanagh craved: literary success, money, international fame and women fawning over him. Kavanagh, who considered himself the superior talent, was not amused. Behan, considering himself to be a city slicker, dismissed country people as “culchies”. As far as he was concerned, the sooner “the fu#ker from Mucker” returned to his “stony grey Monaghan hills” the better. Kavanagh, weary of the obvious rhyme since childhood, was not amused. (Mucker means “place of the pigs”). Kavanagh retaliated by refusing to stand for the National Anthem, because, he said, it was written by “Behan’s oul granny”! (It was in fact written by Behan’s uncle Peadar Kearney).

When the two first met, they had been on friendly-enough terms and Behan, a painter by trade, volunteered to decorate Kavanagh’s Pembroke Road apartment. Later, Behan would joke that it was the only flat in Dublin, ankle deep in empty soup tins, old newspapers, beer and whiskey bottles, that you had to wipe your feet after leaving!


Behan and Kavanagh reunited in the Wax Museum Dublin - In reality they were the best of enemies

The enmity between the two men was cemented in 1954, when Kavanagh sued the Leader magazine for a nasty, anonymous article about him, portraying him as an egotistical, drunken loudmouth. He mistakenly suspected the hand of Behan and hoped to collect considerable damages without the case ever coming to court. However, the Leader defended the action: there was a long drawn out trial and appeal, the stress of which impacted negatively on Kavanagh’s health. During the trial, he bitterly denounced Behan. However, the defence produced a copy of his novel Tarry Flynn, inscribed “to my friend Brendan Behan, on the day he painted my flat”. This helped convince the court that Kavanagh was untrustworthy and he lost the case. Although he later won on appeal, no financial compensation was awarded.


Searson’s pub

On 19 October 1959, or in the early hours of the 20th, Kavanagh was involved in a bizarre incident which left him floundering in the Grand Canal. Patrick claimed that it was an “assassination bid”, by gangsters whom he had exposed in a magazine article. Others were inclined to the view that that he had simply fallen in after a session in Searson’s pub at 42 Upper Baggot Street. The bridge wall is solid and fairly high and it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could fall over it. Perhaps he had tried to cross by one the rickety, wooden lock gates or perhaps he was victim of an “ordinary decent” mugging. The mystery deepens considering that both Searson’s and Baggot Lane, where he was then living, are on the same, southern, side of the Canal. It’s possible that after leaving Searson’s, he met friends, crossed the Canal with them, had more drinks and fell, or was thrown in, on his return journey.

Whatever the truth, Behan managed to turn the situation into another joke at Kavanagh’s expense. Denying involvement, he allegedly whispered, “I wish, though, I could lay my hands on the bollix that pulled him out”! For his part, Kavanagh took to describing himself as “the man they couldn’t kill”!



His later years were to be plagued by ill health and continued financial concerns. In 1955, he survived surgery for lung cancer and had problems with his liver and kidneys as well as thrombosis. He was in debt to just about everyone: publishers (advances didn’t last long), taxman, utility providers, landlord, family and friends. He suffered from insomnia and began to take sleeping pills. He was a lifelong heavy smoker, he had little concept of a healthy diet and he was by now a virtual alcoholic, sneaking bottles of whiskey into pubs to fortify his beer. When he remarked, “not bad stuff at all this beer, it sets up a buzz”, his friends winked knowingly.

Inexorably, Kavanagh became trapped in a vicious circle: the more he drank, the less he worked. The less he worked, the less he earned. The less he earned, the more he worried. The more he worried, the more he drank. He was well aware of his situation, saying: “alcohol is the enemy of creativity”; but he couldn’t break the cycle. The misery of this period was however alleviated by his ever growing literary reputation and by his relationship with Katherine Barry Moloney (1928-89), an aunt of Kevin Barry, whom he had lived with, on and off, for a number of years and who devotedly cared for him. They married on 19 April 1967. Patrick sang On Raglan Road at the reception.

In and out of hospitals, “another of my addictions”, he finally succumbed and died of pneumonia on 30 November 1967. One of his best friends and staunchest supporters, writer, and owner of the Bailey pub, John Ryan (1925-92), summed up his brilliant but chaotic life well.

“Did he not, like the patriarch, show us the Promised Land? And, like the prophet, fail to attain it himself”?

In 2000 the Irish Times surveyed 'the nation's favourite poems' and ten of Kavanagh's poems were in the first fifty. His poem 'Raglan Road', written to be sung, was performed by the folk group, The Dubliners, and remains very popular. The Great Hunger was adapted for the theatre by Tom MacIntyre, and produced in Dublin (Abbey Theatre, 1983).

There is a statue of Kavanagh by Dublin's Grand Canal, inspired by his poem "Lines written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin." Every 17 March, after the St Patrick's Day parade, a group of Kavanagh's friends gather at the Kavanagh seat on the banks of the Grand Canal at Mespil road in his honour. There is also another, original, seat situated on the South Bank at the Lock Gates close to Baggot Street Bridge (As is well known from his poem and heavy hints to his friends, he wished to be commemorated with a simple canal side seat near the lock gates of Baggot Street Bridge). It was errected by his friends, led by John Ryan and Denis Dwyer, in 1968.

Lines written on a Seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin.


"Erected in Memory of Mrs. Dermot O'Brien” by Patrick Kavanagh

O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water preferably, so stilly
Greeny at the heart of summer. Brother
Commemorate me thus beautifully.
Where by a lock Niagariously roars
The falls for those who sit in the tremendous silence
Of mid-July. No one will speak in prose
Who finds his way to these Parnassian islands.
A swan goes by head low with many apologies,
Fantastic light looks through the eyes of bridges -
And look! a barge comes bringing from Athy
And other far-flung towns mythologies.
O commemorate me with no hero-courageous
Tomb - just a canal-bank seat for the passer-by.


Next to the Ulysses Industry deciphering James Joyce there is an almost equivalent industry deciphering On Raglan Road.

See James Joyce and Me;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/06/james-joyce-and-me.html

It is not a problem to Dubliners who don’t have difficulty interpreting On Raglan Road. Apart from the obvious, the line "and I not making hay" may refer to his absence from Inniskeen during the autumn haymaking because of his obsession with Hilda Moriarty, or his unemployment in Dublin at the time.

Grafton Street is Dublin's principal shopping street, running from St. Stephen's Green in the south to College Green in the north. In the 1970s Noel Purcell sang "Grafton Street's a wonderland with magic in the air . . .". The street was named after the first Duke of Grafton, who owned land in the area. It was developed from an existing country lane by the Dawson family in 1708, after whom the parallel Dawson Street is named. Street entertainers such as buskers, poets and mime artists commonly perform to the shopping crowds.


Grafton Street, Dublin

However the main thing to remember about Raglan Road is that it is an allegorical tale of unrequited love. Allegory is used often in Irish poetry and song for during British Rule references to Irish Freedom were often coded, but understood by the listener. So a song might refer to “My Dark Rosaleen” meaning Ireland and say “Spanish wine will give you strength” expressing the hope that England’s enemy would help Ireland’s liberation. Allegory exists in many cultures in tales, song and poetry especially to express love, longing and loneliness from the Gaelic, Aishling, a vision represented by young women to the Hindu Maya, an incarnation of the Goddess Devi represented by a pure young girl.

Indeed On Raglan Road probably “works” because it isn’t “joined up” and creates a sense of mystery about what is being sung so that the listener makes the song their own by filling in the gaps. If On Raglan Road was a painting it would certainly be an Impressionistic offering probably with the title “Heartbreak; An Impression.”


Sinéad O'Connor sings On Raglan Road on the Late Late Show Donal Lunny Tribute


On Raglan Road

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay
O I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.

In an interview filmed for the documentary 'Gentle Tiger', Hilda Moriarty-O'Malley, who inspired 'On Raglan Road', explains the origins of the poem. Actor John Kavanagh sings an extract from 'On Raglan Road'.



Today, Kavanagh is ranked among the giants of twentieth century Irish literature alongside the likes of Joyce, O’Casey and Yeats. His work, utilising “the language of the people”, is unpretentious but very “real”, characterized by lyricism, seriousness and uncompromising honesty. For Kavanagh, poetry was no mere dilettantish diversion: it was a way of life, profoundly spiritual, almost a form of prayer.

As for his life, often lonely, often unhappy, often unhealthy, often dissolute he anticipated and set his legacy in Baggotonia;

On Pembroke Road look out for my ghost,
Dishevelled with shoes untied,
Playing through the railings with little children
Whose children have long since died

He knew that posterity has no use
For anything but the soul,
The lines that speak the passionate heart,
The spirit that lives alone.

'If ever you go to Dublin town'



See; Farewell Ronnie Drew;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/farewell-ronnie-drew.html

James Joyce and Me

Dublin and Anna Livia Plurabella

Today, in my hometown of Dublin, hundreds of people gather to celebrate Bloomsday, the annual event dedicated to the lead character in James Joyce’s Ulysses. Bloomsday re-enacts the epic journey through the capital undertaken by Leopold Bloom on June 16th 1904. The name derives from the protagonist of Joyce's Ulysses, and 16th. June was the date of Joyce's first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, when they walked to the Dublin village of Ringsend. Nora Barnacle is the great constant of Joyce’s life, a chambermaid from Galway, who remained his rock, teacher, and a portable Ireland throughout their lives in exile. Indeed if you walk down Dublin’s Nassau Street at the side of Trinity College you will see in winter (when the leaves are off the trees) on the gable wall of the building where the college wall ends the outline of a sign for “Finns Hotel”, the long closed hotel where Joyce’s inamorta worked. The narrator of Joyce’s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom is the non-practising son of a Hungarian Jew (Blum) and Dublin is viewed on this single day through his outsiders eyes in a narrative modelled on the structure of Homer’s Odyssey.

Ulysses deals with the opulence of personal thought and while we are ushered into its characters private worlds with ease, we know little about their exteriors. The narrative parallels Homer’s Odyssey, but an in-depth knowledge of The Odyssey is not necessary for enjoyment of Ulysses. Throughout the novel, the reader is permitted to become wholly familiar with the inner workings of Leopold’s mind, but not given enough information about his physical appearance to form a clear mental picture of him. We are told he is quiet and decent, a man of inflexible honour to his fingertips. He has a pale intellectual face in which are set two dark large lidded, superbly expressive eyes.

The story of a haunting sorrow is written on his face and his friends say that there’s a touch of the artist about old Bloom, he is isolated from the city he observes, from his religion and most tellingly, from his wife. A safe, moustached man who has his good points and slips off when the fun gets too hot. Another significant figure winding his way through the streets of Dublin in Ulysses is Stephen Dedalus, whom we first meet in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen is an arrogant young intellectual whom Bloom takes under his wing. He acts as a father figure to the young Stephen who fulfils the role to some extent of son for Bloom whose own son died in infancy.


Senator David Norris surrounded by Mollies!

Bloom’s wife Molly in Ulysses is equated with Penelope in The Odyssey and the last chapter of the book is dedicated solely to her meanderings and musings. It is one of the most renowned pieces of writing in Ulysses and is famous for its celebration of this voluptuous, sensuous, opulent, abundant, independent, lush, and blooming woman. Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of the James Joyce's Ulysses is recognised as one of the most famous female narratives in modern literature. It has been used as the basis of songs, re-appeared in movies, quoted in other literary works and in terms of its effect on Irish culture was, as the award-winning writer Eavan Boland puts it, "a liberating signpost to this country's future". Sensuous, compelling and at times hugely funny, this soliloquy is the only time in Joyce's seminal novel where Molly's voice is heard. In it, we hear the otherwise silent character bare her soul on life, love, sex and loneliness.


Bloomsday performers outside Davy Byrne's

Today’s Bloomsday is a spirited celebration among culture-lovers in Dublin and the festival, organised by a foundation that commemorates the writer, now runs for a week. It is traditional to dress up and go out around Dublin on Bloomsday, visiting the locations featured in the book and taking part in readings, walks and activities associated with Ulysses. Bloomsday 2008 got underway last Monday and ends today with a number of events taking place in the city centre and south Dublin. Among the events taking place today are theatrical readings by Senator David Norris, performances from the musical Himself and Nora , a Joycean bike ride and a number of walking tours throughout the city. The day begins with the annual Bloomsday breakfast in the James Joyce Centre on North Great George's Street in Dublin. For many visitors, Dublin is Joyce and on Bloomsday there is a range of cultural activities including Ulysses readings and dramatisations, pub crawls and general merriment, much of it hosted by the James Joyce Centre. Enthusiasts often dress in Edwardian costume to celebrate Bloomsday, and retrace Bloom's route around Dublin via landmarks such as Davy Byrne's pub, where Bloom enjoyed a glass of Burgundy and a Gorgonzola sandwich. Hard-core devotees have even been known to hold marathon readings of the entire novel, some lasting up to 36 hours.

However, the Celtic Sage’s favourite work is also Joyce's most accessible, the compendium of short stories “Dubliners”. Completed when its author was just 25 years old, Dubliners skilfully portrays both turn-of-the-century Dublin and Joyce's surroundings in Continental Europe. Joyce's Dublin was one of politics and intrigue, of religious devotion and disaffection; a city in which the pressures and ties of family and society were never far from mind. Dubliners features Joyce's alma mater, Belvedere College; The Gresham Hotel, setting for the climactic scene in “The Dead”; the site of Nelson's Column and many others which form a map of the city.

Bloomsday, Joyce Centre, North Great George's Street

Joyce’s intention in writing Dubliners, in his own words was to write a chapter of the moral history of his country, and he chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to him to be the centre of paralysis. He tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. Dubliners is a collection of vignettes of Dublin life at the end of the 19th Century written, by Joyce’s own admission, for the most part in a style of scrupulous meanness. ‘The Sisters’, ‘An Encounter’ and ‘Araby’ are stories from childhood. ‘Eveline’, ‘After the Race’, ‘Two Gallants’ and ‘The Boarding House’ are stories from adolescence. ‘A Little Cloud’, ‘Counterparts’, ‘Clay’ and ‘A Painful Case’ are all stories concerned with mature life. Stories from public life are ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’, ‘A Mother and Grace’.



"The Dead" is the last story in the collection and probably Joyce’s greatest. It stands alone and, as the title would indicate, is concerned with death. There is a clear structure to Dubliners for as the stories develop there is a clear progression from youth to middle age and finally, to death. Its stories are arranged in an order reflecting the development of a child into a grown man. The first three stories are told from the point of view of a young boy, the next three from the point of view of an adolescent, and so on. In each of the stories there is a narrator or protagonist who reaches a moment of personal epiphany, a moment of painful personal revelation and self awareness.

"The Dead" is the longest story in the collection and widely considered to be one of the greatest short stories in the English language. It was also, fittingly, the last movie made by the great director John Huston and featured his daughter Angelica who went to school with friends of mine in Loughrea, Co. Galway. The story centres on Gabriel Conroy on the night of the Morkan sisters' annual dance and dinner in the first week of January, 1904, perhaps the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6) Typical of the stories in Dubliners, "The Dead" develops toward a moment of painful self-awareness; Joyce described this as an epiphany. The narrative generally concentrates on Gabriel's insecurities, his social awkwardness, and the defensive way he copes with his discomfort. The story culminates at the point when Gabriel discovers that, through years of marriage, there was much he never knew of his wife's past. His later thoughts reveal this attachment to the past when he envisions snow as “general all over Ireland.” In every corner of the country, snow touches both the dead and the living, uniting them in frozen paralysis. However, Gabriel’s thoughts in the final lines of Dubliners suggest that the living might in fact be able to free themselves and live unfettered by deadening routines and the past. Even in January, snow is unusual in Ireland and cannot last forever.






John Huston's 1987 movie of "The Dead" - ".. snow is unusual in Ireland ..."

The building in which James Joyce set the short story, The Dead, is along the south quays of the River Liffey at 15, Usher’s Island and has been preserved. In The Dead there are frequent references to the depleted schismatic state of Irish nationalism after the death of the great Irish Parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell who was forced out of office by the Catholic Church and his opponents over his relationship with a married woman, Kitty O’Shea. There are frequent references in his later stories to “Ivy Day” (Ivy Day in the Committe Room) which is the 6th October and is commemorated as the anniversary of Parnell’s death and is also somebody else’s birthday! The other short story in Dubliners I particularly relate to is “Araby.” It opens in North Richmond Street which is described in the opening paragraph;


NORTH RICHMOND STREET being blind

“NORTH RICHMOND STREET being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.”


17 North Richmond Street

North Richmond Street is where I grew up as a child, the surrounding streets were my playground and the inner city district of Summerhill was my world until I was nearly five. We lived at No. 15 North Richmond Street and two doors up, looking down the street to the “blind” end on the right hand side is No. 17 where the Joyce family lived for a while. His father was impecunious and the family moved downwards through Dublin from one rented address to another, each one less respectable than the last.

"Araby" is one of fifteen short stories that together make up Joyce's collection, Dubliners. "Araby" is the last story of the first set, and is told through the confused thoughts and dreams of the young male protagonist. Joyce uses this familiarity with the narrator's feelings to evoke in the reader a response similar to the boy's epiphany at the climax of the story. As in many stories of adolescence, the protagonist of "Araby" suffers both isolation and alienation. He never shares his feelings concerning Mangan's sister with anyone. He isolates himself from his friends, who seem terribly young to him once his crush begins, and from his family, who seem caught up in their own world. “Araby” is a tale of sexual awakening where the unrequited love of the young protagonist is set against his excitement at going to the Araby Bazaar (An event held in Dublin in 1894) only to be crushed with disappointment that this event which promised an insight into an exotic world was virtually over and largely in darkness when he arrived. It is an anti-climatic tale of journeys begun with great anticipation which come full circle and lead nowhere, and through it and all the stories in Dubliners there is Joyce’s “scrupulous meanness” sketching the mundanity of everyday existence.

Araby Bazaar Handbill 1894

The great irony is James Joyce didn't like Dublin. He made no secret of the fact, but he never wrote of anywhere else and his writing is filled with the city. From his early work, Dubliners, to his last novel, Finnegan's Wake, Joyce shows a type of obsession with the city of his birth and childhood. It was a very different city from today’s Dublin. It was a city of gaslight, horse-drawn carriages, out-door plumbing and unpaved streets. Poverty permeated the city and the once magnificent Georgian areas were declining into slums. Although in voluntary exile abroad, Joyce could accurately paint a picture of Dublin in detail that would be difficult to achieve for someone walking its streets and taking notes every day.

The novel that shows this most clearly is, of course, his famous work, Ulysses. Joyce once said of this novel:

"I want to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book."

His achievement may come short of being able to rebuild Dublin brick by brick but it is possible to trace Leopold Bloom's 18 mile perambulation around the city in the exact timing of the character - that is how accurate Joyce's calculations were. And this is exactly what many people do every year on the 16th of June. So enjoy a glass of Burgundy and a Gorgonzola sandwich and a supper of inner organs of Beast and Fowl and enjoy an ironic Bloomsday.

James Joyce and Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare & Co., Paris

James Joyce (1882–1941) broke with his native Ireland and with late Victorian conventions to shape a new life for himself and a new literature for his time. His early life was unsettled. Moving to the European continent in 1904, he wavered among careers, considering medicine, law, banking, classical singing, wool merchandising, and managing a theatre troupe, in between stints of writing and language tutoring, as he worked on his early short stories, poems, and finally novels. Until he came to the attention of vigorous advocates and patrons such as Ezra Pound and Harriet Weaver, his finances were in chaos, and the combination of financial pressures and World War I drove him to move around from Pola to Trieste to Zurich, bringing his young family with him. From 1917 onward, he was also increasingly troubled with major eye problems, and his eyesight deteriorated even as the breadth of his literary vision expanded. His daughter Lucia was diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and his son Giorgio was dissolute, reminding Joyce uncomfortably of his own father. He returned to Zürich in late 1940, fleeing the Nazi occupation of France. On 11 January 1941, he underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. While he at first improved, he relapsed the following day, and despite several transfusions, fell into a coma. He died on 13 January 1941 and is buried in the Fluntern Cemetery within sight and earshot of Zürich zoo. Although two senior Irish diplomats were in Switzerland at the time, neither attended Joyce's funeral, and the Irish government subsequently declined Nora Joyce’s offer to permit the repatriation of Joyce's remains. No doubt DeValera's diplomats were there to maintain relations with Herr Hitler's government and didn't want to be seen to be decent to this immoral writer. When Hitler died DeValera called on the German Ambassador to give his condolences (the only Head of Government to do so and after the war his first foreign trip was to see his soulmates Salazar and Franco) - very moral was our DeValera. Nora Joyce died 10 years later and is buried beside him as is his son Giorgio who died in 1976.


James Joyce 1904

In the midst of his instabilities, or perhaps partly because of them, Joyce shaped an entirely new literary style. He focused on small incidents and moments in the lives of ordinary people, and yet he made those moments both universally appealing and profound. He elevated the stream-of-consciousness technique to a new art form. Joyce’s work did much to define modern literature. And try as he might in exile to escape Ireland and Dublin he never left them and they never left him. But like Leopold Bloom he always observed them from the vantage point of an outsider.

Gozo

Citadel of Victoria (Rabat)






Rotunda Church Xewkija

The island of Malta is the fourth most densely populated place in the world and particularly on the north coast has a very urban character with one town running into the other. For many visitors to the Maltese Archipelago its sister island Gozo is the real deal, less populated, greener, more relaxed and very traditional with a definite sense of identity.









Port of Mgarr which connects Gozo to Malta



In Gozo, don't commit the faux pas of referring to them as Maltese, they are "Gozitans" and even the Maltese will tell you that the Gozitans don't like them! Greener and more atmospheric than Malta even the buses are a different colour, yellow on Malta and grey on Gozo. Gozo meaning “joy” in Castilian is the name the Aragonese gave this island, when they possessed it in 1282. The idea of joy and pleasure is also conveyed by its Latin motto “Fertilis ab undis caput iffero – a fruitful land raising its head from the sea”. We know that the Phoenicians, when it was theirs in 700Bc, called it “Gwl” or Gaulos, meaning a round ship, possibly in reference to the island’s shape from a distance, a name the Romans kept when they, in turn took it over in 218 AD. The Arabs, who came to rule this precious piece of land a thousand years ago, and who strongly influenced its Semitic language, left behind the name that has stuck in the vernacular: Ghawdex (pronounced Aw-desh).




Gozitan Bus



It has an area of 67 square kms, is 14 kms long and 7 kms wide. With a coastline of 43 km, it is the second largest island of the Maltese Archipelago that, together with the smaller isle of Comino and the main island of Malta forms the Republic of Malta. Gozo is popularly called The Island of Calypso, which is a nickname originating from the Greek mythological location of Ogygia referred to in Homer's Odyssey. In this epic poem, the fabled island was controlled by the nymph Calypso, who had detained the Greek hero Odysseus for seven long years as prisoner of love in her cave.



"The cave was sheltered by a copse of alders and fragrant cypresses, which was the roosting place of wide-winged birds, homed owls and falcons and cormorants with long tongues, birds of the coast, whose business takes them down to the sea.



Trailing around the month of the cavern was a thriving garden vine, with great bunches of grapes; from four separate neighbouring springs four crystal rivulets were channeled to run this way and that; and in soft meadows on either side, iris and wild celery flourished.



It was indeed a spot where even an immortal visitor must pause to gaze in wonder and delight. "



The Odyssey, V. 63-74, Bk. 5, Homer




Calypso's Cave

Access to Gozo is pretty easy with a ferry service from the port of Cirkewwa every hour during the day which just takes 20 minutes. The ferries are bright and modern and well run purpose designed boats which even have lifts to the passenger deck. Passenger and vehicle service is provided all the year-round between Mgarr Harbour (Gozo) and Cirkewwa (Malta) including Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays together with a night service throughout the year. It is a pleasant 20 minute crossing skirting Comino, so named for the cumin which was grown there.


Gozo Ferry






Mgarr



From the natural sights and caves to the oldest temples in the world, Gozo has a long history to offer. As a deeply religious population, churches and other religious attractions are also abundant on the island. Various attractions you can visit include the Gozo Museum (historical displays) the Gozo Crafts Centre (good selection of local handicrafts) and the Citadel / Gran Castello. Other island attractions include the Gozo Heritage a series of life-size dioramas depicting the island’s past; pretty Xlendi Bay (on the western coast); and at the red-sanded Ramla Bay the reputed Calypso Cave. Near Xagħra are a number of places to see: two Gigantija Temples (1,000 years older than the Pyramids) and the Alabaster Cave(stalactite and stalagmite caves).








Xlendi Bay

On both Gozo and Malta the Arabs built fortified cities in the centre of the islands as defensive capitals, Mdina on Malta and Rabat on Gozo. Whilst the Gozo capital is shown on maps as Victoria, the locals always refer to it as Rabat, Arabic for “The Town”.









Basilica of St George in Victoria, on the saint's Feast Day.



Even today the roads on Gozo lead up from the coast to Rabat / Victoria and down again. Crowning Rabat and the island is the Citadel from which virtually the whole island and the surrounding seas can be seen. The Citadel is built on one of the many flat-topped hills in the centre of Gozo. The island was very exposed to raiders and up until 1637 the people of Gozo had to take shelter within the Citadel's walls after sunset, due to the frequent Turkish assaults on the island. In 1551 a strong Turkish force overwhelmed the Citadel and carried 6000 of the inhabitants away into slavery. Only 300 Gozitans managed to escape before the capitulation. The walls themselves date from the 16th to the 18th century.







Most of the buildings inside the Citadel are in ruins, but the Old Courts of Law and the Old Governor's Palace are still used as the Law Courts of Gozo. Also there are the Old Prisons with the Armoury of the Knights, the Archeological Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Folklore Museum. The Cathedral with the Bishop's Palace and the Cathedral Museum dominate the Citadel. The Cathedral was designed by the Maltese architect Lorenzo Gafa, in the form of a Latin cross. It was built between 1697 and 1711 on the site of an older church and it is saying something (given the stiff competition) that it is probably the most atmospheric church on the islands. Many of its treasures are displayed in the adjoining cathedral museum. The Folklore Museum is housed in three late medieval style houses featuring the influence of Sicilian architecture. Exhibits consist of agricultural implements, items related to the cotton industry, tools used in different crafts and some traditional costumes. All archeological material found on Gozo is on display in the Archeological Museum, a 17th century house, known as "Casa Bondi". Of special interest are shards of the Ghar Dalam phase 5000 BC found at Ghajn Abdul, probably the oldest ever found on the Maltese Islands. Also on display are Punic-Hellenistic pottery statuettes, amphorae and anchors.Reflecting the religious Gozitan culture, there is an abundance of churches scattered all over the island.








Gozo - View from the Citadel

The most interesting are the Sanctuary Basilica at Ta' Pinu built from 1920 till 1931in Romanesque style, on the remnants of a 16th century chapel, as well as the Rotunda Church of Xewkija, with the third largest dome in Europe (86 metres in circumference and 75 metres high). Xewkija, which lies in the middle between Mgarr Harbour and Victoria, is the oldest village in Gozo. The village feast of St. John the Baptist falls on 24th June, and the external festivities are celebrated on the closest Sunday. The word Xewkija is derived from Arabic meaning an area of thorny wastelands, common at some point in time. The awesome Rotunda, naturally dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is Xewkija's distinctive landmark and parish church. Tourists and visitors flock year round to visit the church and its attractions. It offers an unforgettable panoramic view of Gozo from its enormous dome. The monumental church is an enormous circular structure in white local limestone. It is called a Rotunda because of its form. Eight concrete columns covered with stone support its elegant dome, 75 metres high, with a 28-metre diameter, and a circumference of 85 metres. This boasts the third largest unsupported dome in the world. Its weight is calculated to around 45,000 tonnes. What is truly remarkable about the Rotunda is that it is totally out of scale with all the other churches on Gozo and it was entirely built by voluntary labour and donations over a 24 year period from 1951. Some of the pride the village feels at its creation can be garnered from the signs on the surprisingly large viewing area on the dome exhorting you to “admire God’s wonderful creation".


Rotunda Church Xewkija



A remnant of Arab culture in the whereabouts of Xewkija is the renowned marble slab of Majmuna (pron. Maimoona) with an inscription in Arabic dating back to 1173. It throws valuable light on life during Arab cultural domination. It also proves that Malta was by that time still under strong Arab influence, even though Arab political domination was ended with the arrival of Count Roger the Norman in 1090.







Gozo is renowned for its cottage industries, particularly spinning and weaving, and the creation of jumpers and jackets from the wool of sheep and goats. Lace is the most widespread doorstep craft. It was introduced on a large scale after the 1840’s. The craft soon proved its worth for the product was sold to the higher classes of society and even abroad. It was very common, especially in the afternoon, to see mothers with their daughters sitting on empty wooden lemonade crates with a lace pillow in their lap rested against the wall, their hands moving bobbins swiftly and deftly creating the most intricate and delicate of designs.





Azur Window



Gozo lace is an object d’art and it continues to flourish despite competition from machine made lace. The men make lace of a different variety: silver filigree, twisted into intricate pieces of jewellery. And there is fabulous glass, with remarkable shapes in subtle shades of blue and green. Pottery is widely available, ranging from decorative pots and statuettes to imaginative house name plaques and door numbers.

Gozo is also remarkable for some of oldest Neolithic remains including at Gigantija the oldest free standing structure in the world. These temples in Xagħra, Gozo, are one of the most important archaeological sites in Malta. The origins of Gigantija date back to the Ggantija phase (3600 – 3200 B.C.). John Otto Bayer was the first to excavate the temples in 1827. Extensive archaeological and restoration work was carried out in the early 20th century to ensure their preservation. The Gigantija megalithic complex consists of two temples surrounded by a massive common boundary wall. One of the most striking features of the entire complex, the boundary wall, is built using the alternating header and stretcher technique, with some of the megaliths exceeding five metres in length and weighing over fifty tons. The temples at Gigantija are built with rough, coralline limestone blocks. Each temple contains five apses connected by a central corridor leading to the innermost trefoil section. The first temple is larger and contains a variety of features such as altars, relief carvings and libation holes. The second temple was built later and is devoid of such features. Also of interest is the corbelling technique evident on the inwardly inclined walls, suggesting that the temple was roofed.







The gigantic dimensions of the megaliths have always struck a chord with popular imagination. In centuries past, some locals even believed that the Islands’ temples, in particular those of Ggantija, were the work of giants. This particular temple site in Gozo bears witness to this ancient legend: its name, Gigantija, is Maltese for giant.

The Xagħra Stone Circle.
Like the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the Xagħra Stone Circle, was used for funerary rites. It was also built on a promontory to the West of a major megalithic site, that of Gigantija Evidence suggests that this site was utilized for burial purposes over the period 4000 - 2500 BC. The Neolithic people at the time made use of a number of natural caves. The Xaghra Stone Circle was originally marked by two entrance monoliths which seem to have been 14 -16 feet high. Although the exact position has not been located, they seem to have been aligned with the Gigantija Temple. These monoliths together with several other megaliths formed part of a wall which circled the entire site. This circle was approximately 45 m in diameter.



Xagħra stone Circle



The interior is composed of a central ritual area entered through a huge stone threshold and down steps into the rough caves. The central chamber is subdivided into two distinct sections by a series of elegant megalithic trilithon altars and a massive stone bowl. Burials were concentrated in smaller caverns, surrounded by rough coralline stone walls. The most important discoveries from the Xaghra stone circle may prove to be the rare but remarkably preserved human remains.

Ta' Cenc Tombs.
On the northern lip of Ta’ Cenc, looking across towards Xewkija, three tombs assumed to be of the Early Bronze Age Tarxien Cemetery phase can be found, if carefully sought. The first consists of two rows of upright slabs, perhaps once the walls of a gallery grave. Close to them is a more typical dolmen, with a capstone supported on other blocks. The third is similar, built into a more recent field wall 600m to the east. There may once have been a fourth well off to the south east, but this can no longer be found.

Gozo has four good sets of the mysterious cart-ruts, and a few minor ones. At Tan-Nemes, well east of Qala, a pair runs out onto a spur overlooking the Fliegu ta’ Ghawdex. At Ta’ Tingi, several fine pairs can be found in the olive grove west of the pumping station, just south of Xewkija. An extensive system covers the Ta’ Cenc plateau, best seen between the hotel and the cliffs, and running near, but not to, Borg l-Imramma. They continue for nearly a kilometer to the east. An impressive pair zigzags down the slope from the San Lawrenz quarries to end on the cliffs above the Azure Widow at Dwejra.













Marija Bambina Xagħra Church - The feast of the Nativity of Our Lady is celebrated in Xagħra on 8th September of each year. The feast day is also a National Public Holiday otherwise known as Jum il-Vittorja (Victory Day). This is because it recalls the events of the 8th of September 1565, when the Maltese under the Knights of St. John defeated the Ottoman siege of Malta, known as the Great Siege of 1565. This feast is hence locally known also as Il-Madonna tal-Vitorja (Our Lady of Victory).



There are two particular feasts which demonstrate the unique Gozitan angle on life, the Carnival and Victory Day. Carnival is celebrated on the five days preceding Ash Wednesday. It usually falls in February. Initiated during the Aragonese rule (before 1530), the celebration has continued to grow and expand. Colourful artistic floats, grotesque masks and dance companies of all ages and sexes parade the streets of the town and the main villages throughout the five days. A spontaneous carnival is organised after sunset in the villages of Nadur and Xewkija. Hundreds of people walk up and down the main street dressed in comically distorted figures and the most imaginative and creative costumes and masks to conceal their identity. The week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, known in the Christian calendar as Holy Week, is full of religious and folklore displays. The central event is the Good Friday procession during which several life-size statues representing various moments from the passion and death of Christ are paraded through the village streets. Several men make vows to walk in the procession carrying a heavy cross or dragging heavy iron chains tied to their ankles. They wear hoods to conceal their identity. Scores of boys and young men are dressed in period costumes to add to the pageantry. Most impressive is the Roman legion, a gleam of breastplates, spears and shields and who announce themselves with trumpets and drum rolls. The procession is accompanied by the village band.

Bakery

Victory day is celebrated on the 8th of September. On this day the Maltese celebrate the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary as well as the end of the 1565 Great Siege, when the Knights of St. John aided by the Maltese inflicted on the Turks a great defeat. There is a pontifical mass at the cathedral and a military parade in Pjazza Indipendenza. A scholar delivers a speech to commemorate what is perhaps the greatest victory in Maltese history.





Mgarr Harbour



Gozo’s strong sense of identity is manifested in its unique and complex history, its crafts and music, its many village festa, its strong identification with the catholic religion and its rural traditions. It even has its own ministry in the Maltese government. Its inhabitants strongly resisted the building of a bridge across the Gozo channel to Malta. For all that it is both a proud and welcoming place, proud of its identity and happy to be a place apart. There is no fear in walking about at night. The sense of safety and security is tangible. The people take pride in the absolute absence of muggings and the almost non-existence of theft. Until fairly recently, when they were not at home, the villagers of Gozo left their keys in their front doors, a custom which can occasionally still be seen.





Xagħra Neolothic statuettes



Gozo is tranquil, and treasures its peace. For some, the silence can be overwhelming, but not to those for whom it spells a blessed a blessed respite from the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Gozo is not for those who like wild clubbing. Change is slow in Gozo, which adamantly sticks to its tortoise-like pace. Gozo has still succeeded in retaining its qualities of peace and solitude. If Odysseus were to come here today, he would probably find it even harder to leave.





Map of Gozo Click for larger version



See also;



Neolithic Malta



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/02/neolithic-malta.html



Knights of Malta



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/knights-of-malta.html







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