Stories flourish in the long days of an Irish summer
by Kathy Sharpe
On one of the long, silvery days I spent in the countryside around Annaghmakerrig in Ireland, I came across a stone wall with a plaque announcing the site of the former residence of John Robert Gregg, the inventor of Gregg’s shorthand.
I told one of the new friends I’d made at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and the next day we set off so I could take him there. Despite pleasant hours of driving along country lanes, past stone bridges, hedgerows and haystacks, we couldn’t find it again.
I was baffled - I knew it was very close to where we were, and as we drove, I kept thinking it would surely be around the next bend in the road. The villagers we spoke to gave us detailed and cryptic information, even making us wait while they consulted neighbours, but all eventually admitted to having never heard of any such place. Eventually, we were quite lost, and took a long time to find our way back to Annamaghkerrig.
Over dinner that night an Irish poet, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight told us the fairies had probably gotten hold of us. They lead you away, he said, and then you drift into a state of confusion and have trouble finding your way home. Sometimes, he said in hushed tones, by the time you get back, years have passed and everyone you know has grown old.
It was easy to believe such things while ensconced at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre with a group of people whose livelihoods depended on over-active imaginations. And there was something enchanting about being drawn into a rarefied world where the making of art, music and stories took centre stage, and where all else was incidental.
The house itself, gifted to artists by the eccentric Irish/American playwright Tyrone Guthrie, looms in gothic storybook grandeur above a sprawling estate of lakes and woodlands.
In the northern summer, the silvery bright days stretched on and on as the solstice came and went, creating great luxury of both time and space.
Stories were woven on long rambling walks late into the night, where we would talk about our work, our memories, our dreams.
We walked through country lanes and green fields dotted with yellow buttercups while watchful swans drifted on the lake. A red squirrel eyed us briefly before fleeing into the woods. Everywhere was the sweet smell of cut grass and the sound of birdsong.
In the streets of the nearby village old people would stop me, and before I knew it they would be telling me a long story, or some funny anecdote, and I didn’t know how to get away. I began to think the words of the Irish people sounded like musical notes running up and down, or like quick raindrops against the surface of a pool.
Our Irish poet took us on a walk through a maze of lanes to a fairy fort, a circular planting of whitethorn, ablaze with flowers. These are all over Ireland, he said, and no farmer will dare to disturb them, unless he wants a failed crop or sour milk or wishes to invite some other terrible disaster upon himself.
Around the dinner table each night we talked about art, books and songs we knew. People read poems aloud. One night someone sang Irish folksongs, and someone produced a violin. Another night we listened to a composer play a piano piece inspired by the pink petals that drop silently, like summer snowflakes, onto the banks of Lake Annaghmakerrig.
We went into the village and drank at the pub, singing along with the musicians, though we knew the locals smiled to each other at the passing parade of international artists who came and went from their town.
The fields of County Monaghan are made up of oval shaped mounds called drumlins, so that people call it Ireland’s “egg basket”. Hedgerows square it off like checks on a picnic blanket. It looks innocent, and quiet, as though it has a lot of secrets.
Against this backdrop, where the farms once grew flax for the linen mills to the north, Tyrone Guthrie’s grandiose country manor must have always stood out. Inside the house the lavish furnishings, stacked bookcases and profusion of art works speak not only of the eccentric benefactor himself, but of the spirit of the place. The air is soaked with all the music, art and poetry that has been made there. Stepping on its sweeping staircase and through its expansive rooms you can easily imagine the lavish parties and soirees that would have been held as Tyrone entertained his friends; the artists, the bohemians, the avant garde of the time.
Time did seem to take on its own pace there, and suddenly the generous days were at an end for me. They had drifted by in flying whitethorn petals, voices that sounded like music and footsteps following winding country lanes.
I often think about Annamaghkerrig and about Varuna, and about time and silence and space. And with gratitude I think of Tyrone Guthrie and Eleanor Dark, who could see beyond the boundaries of their own creative lives to be make a truly grand gesture - a gift for future generations.