Poets of the Burren, Co. Clare

The natural environment is our primary connection with history. We are born to it and it forms us. Human constructions are passed down, already marked and claimed. With land we are at the start of our life journey; a place which we must make our own. We must forge a unique interaction. Artifacts, constructions, however they are passed down to us, are products of another time. The land is where we are - the basis of our time on the earth. We look at history and know others lived before us, but the knowledge of human kinship comes from land. Our earth, our common place.

Irish struggles for unique identity have often centered on the land; land gives life; shapes culture; defines ownership. We fight on and over the land; claiming territory; struggling over boundaries. The culture is no longer pagan but we have other ways of worshiping the land and the life which flows through it.

Much is written about the spirituality of landscape; particularly In Ireland in recent years. A combination of seemingly disparate factors have provoked deep questions: The weakening of church ties; essential spiritual needs not being met, set side by side with humanistic environmental concerns. Many people now want to go back and take another look at what land means to us. For writers here, the Burren landscape continually offers creative focus. It's unchanging timelessness - refreshes what is essential to the spirit.

My first experience of the Burren was on a cold April day; a grey disorientating drizzle in the air. I was amazed and I was frightened. I had been living in New York and London for many years, used to architectural, if not physical, safety. Streets leading places, buses running along routes, people moving from A to B on schedule, minding the clock. The sheer primeval feel of acres and acres of Burren stone is mind numbing even for those used to its immense unrelentingness. The difference in my perception now is in the gratitude I feel in being engulfed in an aura of timelessness. I now know from my years of living on the Burren's edge, the offer of peace and perspective; the way the stones feel on one's feet in early morning and late evening. The incredible summer flowering; the cool stone on a hot day; puzzling its origins, mind empty of all but the life of the earth.

No, it isn't difficult to see how this place inspires poets and writers of all kinds. Here is something unique, calling for a unique response. Almost a challenge. Many writers live in or near the Burren, and true to its awe-inspiring power, it evokes a reverence which we all savor cautiously. A reflective place; difficult to put one's own stamp on.

Poets discussed are Anne Kennedy, Moya Cannon, John O'Donoghue, Knute Skinner, Frank Golden and Linda McCarriston.

The 2002 edition of 'The book of the Burren', published by Tir Eolas, Co. Clare, can be purchased on their website http://tireolas.com/burren_bk.htm