Anna Kamieńska
The Lamp
I write in order to comprehend not to express myself
I don’t grasp anything I’m not ashamed to admit it
sharing this not knowing with a maple leaf
So I turn with questions to words wiser than myself
to things that will endure long after us
I wait to gain wisdom from chance
I expect sense from silence
Perhaps something will suddenly happen
and pulse with hidden truth
like the spirit of the flame in the oil lamp
under which we bowed our heads
when we were very young
and grandmas crossed the bread with a knife
and we believed in everything
So now I yearn for nothing so much
as for that faith
Translated from Polish by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson
from Astonishments, Selected Poems of Anna Kamieńska, edited and translated by Grażyna Drabik and David Carson, Paraclete Press, 2007.
Wednesday, January 09, 2019
Monday, January 07, 2019
Noises Off: Dublin’s Contested Monuments
published in Dublin Review of Books
Peter Sirr takes a walk about Dublin, looking up, sometimes looking down, at the ways in which the city has tried to commemorate its notable citizens, historical and imaginary. Statues, he finds, may be moving, may be moved elsewhere, and in extreme cases be removed by explosives.
Peter Sirr takes a walk about Dublin, looking up, sometimes looking down, at the ways in which the city has tried to commemorate its notable citizens, historical and imaginary. Statues, he finds, may be moving, may be moved elsewhere, and in extreme cases be removed by explosives.
As I walk down O’Connell Street on a September evening I cross over to inspect the parapet of the bridge in which a small bronze plaque is inset. It reads as follows:
THIS PLAQUE COMMEMORATES FR. PAT NOISE
ADVISOR TO PEADAR CLANCEY.
HE DIED UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN HIS
CARRIAGE PLUNGED INTO THE
LIFFEY ON AUGUST 10TH 1919.
ERECTED BY THE HSTI
To the right of the inscription is a relief of the unfortunate priest’s head. The poor man, I think, plunging into the murky waters of the river. What exactly were the circumstances? Peadar Clancy (the plaque misspells his name) was a republican activist so it’s possible this was an act of the British secret service. Maybe they thought Clancy was in the carriage. So what did they do exactly? How do you cause a carriage to plummet off O’Connell Bridge into the Liffey? It can’t have been easy. And what happened the horses, or the driver? Did they survive? As it happens, we know the answer; we know that, in a sense, everyone survived, because no one died, no one fell into the river, there were no circumstances, suspicious or otherwise, there was not even a Pat Noise, and as for the HSTI, whatever the initials might stand for, the organisation never existed.
Not that anyone noticed, at least for a couple of years after the plaque was set in the bridge. That happened in 2004 when the two hoaxers, dressed as council workers, laid it in the depression left after the removal of the control box for the ill-fated “Millennium Countdown” clock that was installed in 1996. The clock, weighing nearly a thousand kilograms, was placed just below the surface of the Liffey and its illuminated numerals were supposed to count the seconds remaining until the dawn of the millennium. You could have a postcard made showing the exact number of minutes and seconds left. The engineers, however, hadn’t counted on the uncooperativeness of the river. The digital numerals were soon caked with a greenish slime and were barely visible through the dark waters, which was probably not a bad thing as the water seemed to interfere with the clock, which was often wrong. In the end, nine months after its installation, the apparatus was fished out and the citizens counted their own way to the millennium. But the depression remained on the bridge, and eight years later it was quietly filled. Pat Noise from pater noster, our father.
For two years he lay at the heart of the city unnoticed, until a journalist spotted the memorial. Its discovery caused a dilemma for the City Council. It was clearly in breach of planning regulations, and it didn’t even commemorate a real person. Some councillors argued for the substitution of the plaque with a memorial for an actual, recognisable Dubliner. Some were particularly aggrieved that the plaque had lain undetected under their noses. When it seemed likely that it would be removed, Dubliners began laying flowers and ironic tributes on the bridge.
THIS PLAQUE COMMEMORATES FR. PAT NOISE
ADVISOR TO PEADAR CLANCEY.
HE DIED UNDER SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN HIS
CARRIAGE PLUNGED INTO THE
LIFFEY ON AUGUST 10TH 1919.
ERECTED BY THE HSTI
To the right of the inscription is a relief of the unfortunate priest’s head. The poor man, I think, plunging into the murky waters of the river. What exactly were the circumstances? Peadar Clancy (the plaque misspells his name) was a republican activist so it’s possible this was an act of the British secret service. Maybe they thought Clancy was in the carriage. So what did they do exactly? How do you cause a carriage to plummet off O’Connell Bridge into the Liffey? It can’t have been easy. And what happened the horses, or the driver? Did they survive? As it happens, we know the answer; we know that, in a sense, everyone survived, because no one died, no one fell into the river, there were no circumstances, suspicious or otherwise, there was not even a Pat Noise, and as for the HSTI, whatever the initials might stand for, the organisation never existed.
Not that anyone noticed, at least for a couple of years after the plaque was set in the bridge. That happened in 2004 when the two hoaxers, dressed as council workers, laid it in the depression left after the removal of the control box for the ill-fated “Millennium Countdown” clock that was installed in 1996. The clock, weighing nearly a thousand kilograms, was placed just below the surface of the Liffey and its illuminated numerals were supposed to count the seconds remaining until the dawn of the millennium. You could have a postcard made showing the exact number of minutes and seconds left. The engineers, however, hadn’t counted on the uncooperativeness of the river. The digital numerals were soon caked with a greenish slime and were barely visible through the dark waters, which was probably not a bad thing as the water seemed to interfere with the clock, which was often wrong. In the end, nine months after its installation, the apparatus was fished out and the citizens counted their own way to the millennium. But the depression remained on the bridge, and eight years later it was quietly filled. Pat Noise from pater noster, our father.
For two years he lay at the heart of the city unnoticed, until a journalist spotted the memorial. Its discovery caused a dilemma for the City Council. It was clearly in breach of planning regulations, and it didn’t even commemorate a real person. Some councillors argued for the substitution of the plaque with a memorial for an actual, recognisable Dubliner. Some were particularly aggrieved that the plaque had lain undetected under their noses. When it seemed likely that it would be removed, Dubliners began laying flowers and ironic tributes on the bridge.
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