“When growing up, my bunch of friends would have thought of ourselves as anti-unionist because we were anti-establishment. We would have been vaguely all-Ireland republican socialists. But then, when theory turned into practice, we had to decide where we stood and I never did resolve it for myself. Marching for civil rights was terrific, but bombs and killing people? I never put a name to my own position and I still can’t, which suits me fine. From time to time you get a kick from some critic for not being sufficiently political, or for being a closet unionist or a closet republican. There was a time when people – much more English people than Irish – would ask, ‘Why don’t these Ulster poets come out more explicitly and say what they are for?’ But there is all this ambiguity. That is poetry. It is the other thing that is the other thing.” — Derek Mahon
Popular Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon has died at the age of 78. I wrote a long post about him, which I post every year on his birthday. It can now be my tribute. He has been writing poetry for most of his life, and there are many great poems to choose from but “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford” is one of Ireland’s most beloved poems. I posted it in that post I linked to. Oana Sanziana Marian wrote of that poem:
His most famous poem, “A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford,” digs, too, but instead of turning soil, as in Heaney’s earthbound rural scene in (maybe his most famous poem) “Digging,” Mahon gets underneath “a burnt-out hotel / Among the bathtubs and the washbasins” and – but who would see this coming? – commemorates forgotten victims of Treblinka and Pompeii through the perspective of a thousand mushrooms crowded around light passing through a keyhole.
Most recently, a poem he wrote some years back – “Everything Is Going to Be Alright” – came back up into public consciousness when it was read on an Irish news program in early March, as it became clear that a lockdown was imminent. It took hold. People shared it endlessly on social media. It spread like wildfire. It was what people needed to hear.
Everything Is Going to Be Alright
by Derek Mahon
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart;
the sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
It brings tears to my eyes. Art can disturb, enlighten, reveal. It can also console in dark dark times. Scared people clung to this poem. I know I did. This is why we need artists.
Rest in peace, Derek Mahon.
