Explore: Raglan Road 2

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 24 Mar 23 - 01:33 PM

I s the story about the queen of hearts being a pub used by prostitutes correct or not

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Mar 23 - 06:34 PM

Only a little bit concerning Raglan Road but this is an interesting programme about Patrick Kavanagh.

BBC radio 4 2018
Patrick Kavanagh: the Inexhaustible Adventure of a Gravelled Yard
Theo Dorgan wanders the streets of Dublin and lanes of County Monaghan, tracing his life and significance.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rwmby

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 15 Jan 23 - 04:42 PM

Good programme on RTÉ
18 DEC 22 • 53 MINS •

The Dawning of the Day - The Lyric Feature

The story behind Patrick Kavanagh's On Raglan Road


https://www.rte.ie/radio/podcasts/22187171-the-dawning-of-the-day-the-lyric-feature/

Particularly interesting are the recollections from Hilda Moriarty's son Daragh O'Malley.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: meself
Date: 28 Dec 20 - 12:08 PM

That's a pertinent fact, undoubtedly. But "No more, no less"? This is poetry we're talking about, not journalism.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,tom tonge
Date: 27 Dec 20 - 07:25 PM

The "Queen of Hearts" is the lady in that costume who made pastry in the window of Bewley's Cafe on Grafton Street. No more no less..

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 05 Nov 16 - 04:32 PM

The reason for the poem.....

http://www.irishidentity.com/extras/gaels/stories/hildaomalley.htm

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Amos
Date: 30 Apr 16 - 09:03 PM

Helen--no harm, no foul!

What an interesting insight into the slightly battered profile of old Kavanagh. Thanks do much for your post, DesiC! The line about the Queen ("and I not making hay") makes perfect sense in that context!

A

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Helen
Date: 29 Apr 16 - 11:31 PM

Ah, Steve Shaw, you're gonna regret asking that question! I'll just have to refresh the orange and the bicycle seat thread for your enlightenment.

Sorry, Amos, I misspelled your name. It was probably a subconscious slip because my nephew Amos is usually called Moss by friends and family.

Helen

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 28 Apr 16 - 11:45 AM

I began studying this song some 10 years ao when I first performeed it. Since then I've read just about everythin on it and talked to Irish somg experts both here in the UK and back home in Ireland, plus I've met some who knew Patrick Kavanagh, by all accounts not an easy man to get to know and a rather bitter angry figure in his latter days. It's my belief the song is one of unrequited love, firstly in relation to Hilda Moriarty, a most beautiful woman that he was aquainteed with in his 40's when she was ab out 20. There;s no evidence that they ever had a relationship though he certainly 'fancied' her, as did the likes of Fidel Castro and John F Kennedey both of whom she met,

It was Hilda who one day Teased Kavanagh for writing what she called "too much agrcultural poems" and "why not write about people" he duly produced the poem later renamed Raglan Road. But his real unrequited love was Ireland in the shape of the Irish government, he was hugely critical of the Cathlic churches involvment in matters of state and vice versa. He also felt he never got the recognition of the state while others, particularl his former friend Brendan Behan became a showbiz celebrity feted my the English and American media. He was once heard to say outside Behan's Dublin appartment "look at him the auld queen lording it up there while I can't sell an article. And there I'm sure was the birth of 'the Queen of hearts' line. Fact is Behan was a great humerous charmer while Kavanagh had become often too drunk to write. Raglan Road I'm sure was written in Classic Irish fable form so that Kavanagh could finally have is say and leave Ireland frustrated by never telling people what exactly the song meant. In my opinion one the greatest pieces of Irish literature, though never recognised in life Kavanagh's words have since been imortalised, I think it should be sub titled Up Yours Ireland

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 07:57 PM

The mind boggles. An orange and a bicycle seat? Omigod...😜

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Amos
Date: 27 Apr 16 - 07:02 PM

A delight to see your shapely typography again, Helen. This is the typeface that launched a thousand poetic efforts concerning an orange and a bicycle seat, if I recall. :D

A

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 07:33 PM

For years I've been dying to tell Kirsty that this is one of my eight desert island discs. Dammit, she has yet to ask me. It would always have to be sung by Luke. I've always been more of a tunes man, but I'll always make an exception for Luke. Oh, and Sandy Denny.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,michaelr
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 05:08 PM

It's entropy, Amos. Lamentable but not preventable.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Helen
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 03:26 PM

Greetings to the lovely Amos.

I appear to be back at Mudcat after a few years absence while only infrequently checking in here.

I'll read all of this thread later, on your recommendation, when I get home from work this afternoon (Oz time).

I was never a fan of Van Morrison but he converted me to a love of the song Raglan Road when I heard his version, recorded with The Chieftains on the Irish Heartbeat CD.

(You must be a special person, Amoss, because you have a cyclone named after you LOL)

Helen

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Amos
Date: 26 Apr 16 - 02:04 PM

I return to this lovely thread with a deep sense of loss for the many voices here who shared deep sensibilities and energetic research, flights of opinion and a sense of awe for the beauties that are all rolled up in Paddy Kavanagh and his song, the historical tidbits, the fine analysis, and all the rest--all exchanged in courtesy and civil respect for views alike or different.

By sorry contrast, the range of insult and vituperation which colors so many of our threads modernly is a great embarrassment, and brings pangs of regret for the loss of this kind of brilliant Mudcat discourse.

As to the song, this thread has single-handedly converted me to a lover of it, and I will study it up in the hopes of being able to do a decent rendition of it, these many miles and years away from its source.

A

Subject: found this on a web site
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Oct 12 - 12:06 PM

I found this on a web site which might be of interest. It,s a letter PK wrote to Hilda saying he dosn,t love her anymore.

IS THE day of love letters over, now that we communicate by email or text, or by poking people on Facebook? Bridget Hourican, literary editor of The Dubliner magazine, reminds us of the heady days of love missives, when the sight of her beloved's handwriting could send a woman into a tizzy, in her new book, Straight From The Heart, Irish Love Letters.

The collection includes letters from James Joyce to Nora Barnacle, from Charles Stewart Parnell to Katherine O'Shea and Michael Collins to Kitty Kiernan.

The 40-year-old poet is writing to the great unrequited love of his life to tell her that he no longer loves her. Hilda Moriarty was a stunning 22-year-old medical student when Kavanagh developed an obsession with her, stalking her around Dublin and even to her family home in Dingle.

62 Pembroke Road.

31 May 1945.

My dearest Hilda,

Please do not take exception to the address of 'dearest' or think it a presumption on my part. I am no longer mad about you although I do like you very very much. I like you because of your enchanting selfishness and I really am your friend - if you will let me.

I should not, perhaps, write this letter to you without you replying to my other, but I am in such a good humour regarding you that I want you to know it. Remembering you is like remembering some dear one who has died. There has never been - and never will be - another woman who can be the same to me as you have been. Your friendship and love or whatever it was, was so curious, so different.

Write to me a friendly letter even if I cannot see you. I met Cyril in the Country Shop and he was looking well,

Believe me, Hilda,

Yours fondly,

Patrick.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Ralph Wigg
Date: 09 Jun 12 - 06:19 AM

Try listening to Joan Osborne's version wuth the Chieftains.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 16 Mar 12 - 11:20 PM

Having read the posts for the last three years since I last interjected in this discussion and coming up with some thoughts I forgot to say what I came in for which was that I just watched a youtube clip where Luke Kelly said that he had asked Kavanagh If he could sing this, where the version of the story which I remember has Kavanagh asking Kelly If he would sing it.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: RobbieWilson
Date: 16 Mar 12 - 11:16 PM

It is good to return to old friends and after 3 years away from this thread to meet Desi who I have met in the real, touchy smelly world since writing here.

I had never thought of this in any allegorical sense but I could see that Kavanagh might see his experience or at least his view of that as having parallels with the state of the State: he was a man of no small ego. This does not diminish my reading of he closing lines as suggesting he sees himself, the angel, falling for falling for a lesser soul.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: BobKnight
Date: 01 Dec 10 - 10:45 AM

Having just done a wee bit of research on the subject of, "Incubus," supernatural entities that haunt human females with sexual dreams, I discovered that they were said by some scources to be angels who having lain with human females, were stripped of their wings and cast down from heaven.

"When the angel woos the clay he'll lose, his wings at dawn of day."

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,dsweeney
Date: 01 Dec 10 - 08:25 AM

I've just dropped this in here so if it's a bit out of place, sorry. I've always thought the song was about how you spot someone and instantly fall in love with them, knowing you will never get to know them as they are complete strangers. Hence the " snare " and unhappiness that he knows will follow the brief glimpse of this beautiful woman.
          The singer Dido has claimed the woman in question is an aunt of her fathers and she has a song called " Grafton St. " on her latest album. She was a student nurse from around the way and went on to be considered one of the most beautiful women in Ireland.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 08:43 AM

Raglan road is always worth another walk down. What the various phrases in the Song mean is a secret Kavanagh took to his grave. The various places are ones that he regularly visited when he would walk by the liffy and sit in contemplation.

But having talked to some of his ex students and others in Ireland who have researched the man, I strongly belief that the 'unrequited love' is in Fact Ireland itself, Or more the relationship between church and state in Ireland, which he was very passionate and critical about, and he often fell foul of Ireland's hidden censorship unpublished laws. Those I've spoken to tell me that he very much wanted to leave his views behind, but probably rightly feared they would be supressed by the state. So he resorted to one of Irelands oldest form of protest, the Musical fable. And Raglan Road, or as it was originally titled Dawning Of The Day is such an example. Like most Irish writers he had a great love for his country, but hated the Churches involvement in state and vice versa. By all accounts it made him quite a bitter and unhappy man, the love of a country that didn't show love in return

He is described as having been very strong minded and said what he felt. Was there a real lady who spurned his affections, there were rumours of affection for a student. But unrequited ladies of love, almost never go unnamed in in Irish traditional songs, if only to be given the trad name Rose of'

Kavanagh used to perform te poem in sessions where he met and became great friends with the late Luke Kelly. It's recorded that Kelly persuaded him to let him put it in Song, Kavanagh apparently said he had to persuade Luke! But Luke did put the tune to it and renamed it Raglan Road, for legal reasons as there were already at least two other works named Dawning Of The Day, and so in my opinion was born one of the Greatest of Ireland's love songs, be it land or Lafy

Desi C
The Circle Folk Club

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Bob Marley
Date: 15 Oct 10 - 06:48 AM

what does he mean in the last two lines of the poem?

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Desi C
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 03:15 PM

I'm wary of adding theory onto theory, especially when the only person who can tell us the truth took that truth to his grave. but when I started performing Raglan Road thinking it was simply the best unrequited love song, I began hearing another theory quite regularly. Then on one of many trips back home to Kilkenny I came acrooss an old guy who gives lectures on Kavanagh and turned out he had studied under Kavanagh at Uni in Dublin. The theory I had been hearing was a code in the tradition of Irish fable ballads. This man Jim partly agreed but in his opinion Kavanagh had always been very bitter about the unofficial Irish censoriship system that kept his book Tary Flin off the shelves and the derision he recieved from oficial quarters over his outspoken views about the links between Government and religion. So he used the imagery of Dublin and onlyn perhaps some unrequieted love to weave quite on intricate fable. The fact that he is decribed as being a somewhat bitter and vry outspoken man, think gives weight to the belief that he wrote Ragland Rd (originally titled Dawning Of The Day, Luke kelly re named it Raglan Rd) To have his say and go to the grave knowing he finally had his say and left a mystery behind. And after talking to many people it's the theory I prefer to believe, from what I've learned Kavanagh just wasn't sensitive enough of people's feelings, not to name his urequited love, because that love who spurned him was in fact Ireland herself!

Desi C

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 05:39 AM

Note the faces in the audience, Besides Ciaran MacMathúna, who probnably was the presenter.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 05:33 AM

Kavanagh & Kelly singing though not at the same time.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 10 - 05:14 AM

Didn't read the whole thread, so this may have been mentioned, but the last line sounds like a reference to the legend of Icarus to me: Reckless young man flies too high, the sun bakes the clay off his arms and he loses his wings and falls.

Also 'making hay' is slang for having sex, so I think there is a double meaning in that line, especially coming after the bit about tarts. Sounds like there's some bitterness about her taking other lovers while he cannot move on.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,JohnNoZ
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 11:15 PM

An amazing thread!

I would add that (as mentioned above), the represented fall from grace is important to the poem. There is a form a idolatry to the "angel" allowing himself to love too much and in the wrong way the one "made of clay".

It seems that he knows better, but throws caution to the wind, and it ends as he knew it must.

I think that, if the "made of clay" element were removed, so would much of the significance of the fall. However, it still seems arrogant to have up that kind of value separation between himself and the girl.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: michaelr
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 04:00 PM

Thank you Rockall for your contribution.

Mark Knopfler did indeed sing the song as part of the 1996 inauguration of Irish language TV station TnaG, for which Donal Lunny organised a two-week "session" in the then brand new Temple Bar Music Center. Highlights were released on the CD "Sult - Spirit of the Music".

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Rockall
Date: 01 Jan 10 - 03:38 PM

Hi all. Just came across this thread and have read all contributions. I am in no way musically or poetically gifted in any aspect of either of these fantastic gifts.

Mark Knofflers music always interests me and I have just discovered he had sung 'Raglan Road' along with Donal Lunny. This touched a chord with me - as follows. Ten years ago, at my late wifes funeral mass, a local musician played 'Raglan Road' during the communion cermony - a chill went up and down my spine as it is, to this day, the most touching song I have ever heard. My late wife worked for a period in Baggot Street and used to walk to and from work along Raglan Road. Like the poem/song my wife had her own 'dark hair' and I can clearly remember thinking of this as the music played during the mass - scary. I didn't even know the musician at the time and had not requested either him or the song. I discovered afterwards that the musician had got up and played Raglan Road at his own wifes funeral some years earlier - that takes guts. The musician is known locally as 'Big Paddy' and his rendition and voice are as close as you can get to the Luke Kelly version. I have always regarded Luke's version as the definitive recorded version. I actually do not like Mark Knofflers version.
I have always had an interest in the story behind Raglan Road, ever since my wifes death, and have visited the road on many occasions since - I get great peace and comfort walking along Raglan Road humming the song to myself - 'on a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now......' I have read all the threads and it is difficult now to choose the real story behind the words - I will stick with my own thoughts as they are still so so dear to me.

I have had a very enjoyable few hours.

Happy New Year and best wishes to you all

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: ard mhacha
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 10:40 AM

And his Monaghan accent gone, I never would have guessed.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: ard mhacha
Date: 28 Aug 09 - 10:36 AM

Very appropriate for this Thread the man himself describing his many-sided personality,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ays_c0JXAU

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: meself
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 09:37 AM

No need to "embellish" anything. He fell for a woman; she decided that he wasn't her type; he didn't immediately give up; she took to avoiding him. A common enough experience - why, I'll wager this pipe in my mouth that there are some on this very list who have been through similar experiences.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Quicksall
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 03:52 AM

I have become obsessed with Ragland Road. I got a CD of Irish music from the Goodwill (of all places), and that song was on it. I have listened to it over and over, drawn by its sadness and mystery. I know nothing of Kavanaugh except what I have read here, but I wonder if he didn't start with his own love affair and embellish it just to make it more interesting/ dramatic. . . sort of like spicing up your personal journal entries for posterity. LOL. Anyway, until I read these posts, I thought when they tripped along the ledge and saw passion's worth that they had disposed of their love child. How far fetched it that? After reading this thread, the song makes a lot more sense to me, but I sort of liked just trying to find my own interpretation by feeling blindly in the dark. It could mean anything that I wanted it to mean.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 May 09 - 03:44 PM

For one there's

"The Queen of Hearts still making tarts
And I not making hay"

And for another

"That I had loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay,
When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of day."

The rueful humour that goes with a touch of wry self-mockery.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: michaelr
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:43 AM

McGrath, I'd be interested in your pointing out the humourous bits.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 May 09 - 07:37 PM

Kavanagh didn't think it was his best poem, I understand. Not that that in itself determines the matter.

I still find it strange that so many people, singing or listening, fail to detect the element of wry humour in the poem.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: meself
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:53 AM

I must not have noticed this the first time around:

"Raglan Road is the most wonderful poem ever written in the English language."

I don't know what "the most wonderful poem ever written in the English language" is, but I don't think this is it. It's a good poem, but there are many good poems.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,samferguson
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:12 PM

My interpretation is that the writer fell in love with a figure on a grave stone in a cemetary and imagined an affair with her including the end of this affair. Thus the references to ghosts and enchanted ways. The seasons frame the timing of his imaginary love.
Whatever the meaning it is a fantastic song and like a lot of people I first heard it on the In Bruge sound track.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 06:15 AM

Very true Ard, but no one's fool. Though obviously a republican and sneered by the other side as 'the laureate of violence', he has been very careful not lend his endorsement to any specific political party - so far as I know.

Like Kavanagh - his view of things is not a simplistic one.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: ard mhacha
Date: 24 Dec 08 - 05:30 AM

Seamus Heaney from all I have read and seen in the Irish media, comes across as a sociable and pleasant person, without blemish.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: meself
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 01:33 PM

"No doubt Murray he was a cranky oul bastard,but there have been many a person in the literary world of a similar disposition."

True. And many a person of a similar disposition who hasn't left any significant cultural artifact behind.

(By the way, my understanding is that not everyone who met Yeats was enamored of him. Don't know about Heaney!)

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 09:21 AM

A fair assessment WLD, and reading Kavanagh`s Tarry Flynn and The green fool, would have any one agree with all you have written.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 08:44 AM

I think no one was more aware that he was 'damaged goods' - than Kavanagh, himself.

He must have felt himself set apart from the people he was born amongst very early.

You know there are so many Irish singers going round selling the colour postcard Celtic idyllic Ireland - it really is the most fatal/profitable way for an Irish artist to go.

And you get none of that with Kavanagh. His work is full of the tales of the casual cruelties, the illogicalities, the unyielding nature of the soil itself.

And really nowadays, when the world's greatest poet is Seamus Heaney - you have to ask yourself - whose voice does Heaney remind you of? Surely not Yeats with all his abstractions and clever bits of esoteric knowledge. Kavanagh must surely have been an influence.

Kavanagh must have suffered agonies being so much a fish out of water in Dublin. But in truth he was a fish out of water everywhere. And that must be a hell of a situation to live in, when you socially at ease nowhere, unless you're too drunk not to care.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Dec 08 - 04:51 AM

No doubt Murray he was a cranky oul bastard,but there have been many a person in the literary world of a similar disposition.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 22 Dec 08 - 05:33 PM

I have had extensive correspondence over the years with people who really knew Patrick Kavanagh.

I can state with certainty that nobody who actually knew him ever liked him.

the barmen , in the few pubs where he was still allowed to be served, may have been entranced by his fame, but the neighbours and locals in Dundalk who had to put up with his quirks and peccadilloes were less besotted.

from what I can gather from the people who knew him, he appears to have been an extremely egotistical, selfish, and uncaring person, and I now believe that the words of Raglan Road should be analysed with this in mind.

this of course , does not detract one whit from the fact that Raglan Road is the most wonderful poem ever written in the English language.

weird ..

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Dec 08 - 02:07 PM

Luke and look for no one else, unsurpassed.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: Big Phil
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 02:44 PM

Hi GUEST Jim,

Have a listen to Mr Kelly singing this song, be prepared to be amazed.

LUKE - simply the best.   

Phil*

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 12:31 PM

Like the others who have written before me, I've spent hours reading about the fascinating history and interpretations of this beautiful song. I was in search of interpretation of the lyrics when I found this site and would just like to add that despite being a hugh Van Morrison fan and despite listening to the many other great versions mentioned above, my favorite is still the version I first heard by Mark Knofler (www.youtube.com/watch?v=zftcuVQDcNM). I'm surprised no one else mentioned this version and highly recommend giving it a look if you havent already.

Subject: RE: Explore: Raglan Road 2
From: GUEST,Colin, Woking, Surrey
Date: 26 Oct 08 - 04:53 PM

My Dad used to play Peter Rowan's up-tempo version of this song when I was very young. This, for me, is still my favourite version:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yXIVYQ7_IzM

In my opinion, the song is actually helped by being a little quicker and the harmonies really add feeling.

As for the lyrics, I certainly never understood them when I was younger, but I now find them absolutely fascinating. And I have actually spent the better part of the weekend reading through the two threads on this song!

"Raglan Road" really hits home and moves me like no other...