A Question and Answer Session with Patrick Semple

March 1 to April 14

Patrick Semple

Patrick is a former Church of Ireland clergyman and the author of two volumes of memoir, a novel, travel book and two collections of poems. You can find out more on his website: http://www.patricksemple.ie/

Patrick’s books can be purchased directly from his publishers Code Green, or from the usual online outlets. 

Patrick Sample

1.Who are some of the contemporary short story writers you admire? If you had to say, who do you regard as the three best ever short story writers?

1. Alice Munro, Edna O’Brien, especially her recent collection ‘Saints and Sinners’.

The three best ever? Chekhov, James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’ and de Maupassant.

2. I have read lots of Indian and American short stories in addition to Irish and alcohol plays a much bigger part in the Irish stories. How should an outsider take this and what does it say about Irish culture.   I am reading The Dublin One City One Book Selection Strumpet City and it almost seems whiskey is the life blood of the city.

1. The abuse of alcohol is more often than not an escape from difficult or painful reality. Tribal identity and allegiance are fundamental to and very deep in the human condition. Because colonisation diminished and even ridiculed Irish identity for so long, compounded by poverty for the majority, the abuse of alcohol became the escape from the humiliation of this painful reality. Alcohol became deeply embedded in the Irish psyche and is considered acceptable for recreational purposes on every conceivable occasion. At two recent book launches of mine I purposely arranged for tea, coffee and sparkling water to be served. As far as I know nobody walked out!  

3. Declan Kiberd has said the dominant theme of modern Irish literature is that of the weak or missing father? Do you think he is right and how does this, if it does, reveal itself in your work.

1. It rings true to me, though I don’t know enough about the breath of modern Irish literature to be sure. I think you will find in my work a number of passive fathers where they are present and dominant mothers. A number of my fathers are absent by death. I think that weak or absent fathers and strong or dominant mothers are a factor, not a simple cause, in homosexual sons. A study in the Church of Scotland in the 1970s showed that over 70% of clergy lost emotional contact or physical contact by death or desertion, with their fathers by the age of fourteen.

4. Why did you end your career with the Church of Ireland?

1. Quite simply I found that I could no longer believe the fundamental doctrines of the Christian Church.

5  The Fall of Celtic Tiger, the Irish Economy,has caused a lot of pain and misery.  Is there a positive side to this?  what lessons for the future can writers take to their work?  has it in any sense brought people closer to values other than consumerism?  Is it just another day in the life of the Irish?

1. The pain and misery caused for many people is too tragic to be just another day in the life of the Irish. Young people who were brought up during the ‘good’ times are finding it difficult to adjust to austerity. I think it will take time for this to lead to values other than consumerism. Older people who were brought up in harder times adjust better to austerity and feel prosperity was great while it lasted.’ I imagine that all of this will be reflected in Irish writing.

6You indicated you have a Coleridge volume on your nightstand-what do you relish in his work besides the two basic poems? Who is the greater poet, he or Wordsworth?

1. His reflections on what influenced him from his early years as a writer and insights into the times in which he lived. I don’t know about greatness, but I prefer Coleridge.

7. Tell us a bit about your non-academic non literary work experience please.

1. I left school aged 15 in 1955, when Ireland was economically bereft. I worked for eighteen months counting spare parts in the store of a car assembly plant. I then worked in an insurance company for six years before going to university. After ordination in 1967 I went as curate to a parish in Belfast and was there for the first six months of the troubles. A year at the Divinity School, University of Chicago, eleven years in a country parish, six years as a Church Adult Education Officer, eight years in a country parish, followed by two and a half years in a small Dublin inner city parish with which went chaplaincies to Mountjoy Prison and three hospitals. Then I retired. I enjoyed every minute of my time in the Ministry and have no regrets. I loved working with people in parishes creating community and being present with people in their sorrows and in their joys. I found I simply could not believe any longer.

8When you are outside of Ireland, besides friends or family, what do you miss the most and what are you glad to be away from?

1. We spend a holiday in Italy every year and after about three days of pasta I crave ‘the spud’! I am glad to be away from fatuous political debate.

9. Why have the Irish produced such a disproportional to their population number of great writers?

A.I simply don’t know. I’m sure there are a number of standard theories on why this is, but I don’t know what they are.

10. (This may seem like a silly question but I pose it anyway-do you believe in Fairies?-this quote from Declain Kiberd sort of explains why I am asking this:

" One 1916 veteran recalled, in old age, his youthful conviction that the rebellion would “put an end to the rule of the fairies in Ireland”. In this it was notably unsuccessful: during the 1920s, a young student named Samuel Beckett reported seeing a fairy-man in the New Square of Trinity College Dublin; and two decades later a Galway woman, when asked by an American anthropologist whether she really believed in the “little people”, replied with terse sophistication: “I do not, sir – but they’re there."

A. I am both an atheist and an afairyist. Some people find it good fun to pretend.

11. Do you think the very large amount of remains from neolithic periods (the highest in the world) in Ireland has shaped in the literature and psyche of the country?

1. That’s beyond me. I haven’t the remotest idea.

12. Has the Church of Ireland been at all impacted by the sort of scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in Ireland? How debased is the church by this?

1. No it hasn’t been impacted in the same way. However I’m certain that there is the potential for all of the scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church to rock the other churches as well.

13 Do you feel Aosdana is the best use of the Irish governments limited funds to promote the arts or do you think the money could be better spent in another way?

1. I think that Aosdana is a good use of Government money.

14. What are the biggest challenges in teaching creative writing?

       A, To convince students that it is not just a matter of ‘letting it flow’. It is important to

            learn the craft of creative writing.

15. William Butler Yeats said in "The Literary Movement"-- "“The popular poetry of England celebrates her victories, but the popular poetry of Ireland remembers only defeats and defeated persons”. I see a similarity of this to the heroes of the Philippines. American heroes were all victors, they won wars and achieved independence. The national heroes of the Philippines were almost all ultimately failures, most executed by the Spanish or American rulers. How do you think the fact Yeats is alluding too, assuming you agree, has shaped Irish literature

1. ‘History is written by the victors’. This is true. I am not an English Literature graduate, so I would find it impossible to address this.

16.   One of your many publications is The Parish Guide to Adult Education. Please talk a bit about that concept.

1. My understanding of Christian adult education was that Church members should grow and develop in their understanding of the faith. They need to do this in order to apply their faith to their evolving life experience. Many adults have a static faith. They grow and develop in other areas of their lives, by simply living in the world but they don’t grow in faith. Adult Christian education is a way of helping people to reflect on their faith the better to apply it to daily living.

17. Do you think poets have a social role to play in contemporary Ireland or are they pure artists writing for themselves and a few peers?

A  I believe that the latter is the case. I talk about this very point in Chapter 5 of ‘Being Published’.

18. "To creative artists may have fallen the task of explaining what no historian has fully illuminated – the reason why the English came to regard the Irish as inferior and barbarous, on the one hand, and, on the other, poetic and magical."-is this right? Kiberd, Declan (2009-05-04). Inventing Ireland (p. 646).

1. The English considered all of people they colonised inferior and barbarous. There was and is a poetic and magical something about the Irish of which the English are envious to this very day. Creative artists contribute an insight into human experience that is unique and not present in other disciplines.

19. Do you think Irish Travellers should be granted the status of a distinct ethnic group and be given special rights to make up for past mistreatment? Are the Travellers to the Irish what the Irish were once to the English? I became interested in this question partially through reading the short stories of Desmond Hogan.

1. Yes I think Travellers should be granted special status to compensate them for the appalling treatment of them in the past and indeed to some extent in the present. To a large extent it is true to say that the Travellers are to the Irish what the Irish were once to the English.

20How did you get into blogging? what are your goals as a blogger? do you find it an essential for professional writers?

A. I am online naïve. I struggle to keep up. I get good help with my website which a friend said I should have and he had it set up for me. Otherwise it would never have occurred to me to have one. I now find it very useful, I think every writer should have one. I started blogging when the friend who looks after my website made WordPress available to me where I could post myself. My blogs are simply things that interest me and I hope some other people may find them interesting too.

21. You have said that Irish Nationalism arises from a sense of inferiority-can you elaborate on that a bit-do you mean inferiority to the English? going with this, is being a Church of Ireland cleric in Ireland a bit like being a living symbol of English domination and Irish inferiority?

1. I think I said something to the effect that obsessive nationalism arises from a sense of inferiority. There is a healthy nationalism. I think that in the nature of things colonisation makes people feel inferior, which paradoxically induces in them a kind of superiority which is a component of nationalism. The answer to your second question is ‘no’. It might have been ‘yes’ seventy or eighty years ago, but not in recent times. The Church of Ireland, her clerics and her people in the South of Ireland are well integrated into Irish life so that this is not an issue.

22. What are the things that Irish universities need badly to do better, where do they excel?

1. This is a subject I really don’t know anything about. My involvement with university is mimimal – an adult night class.

23. If you were to be given the option of living anywhere besides Ireland where would you live?

1. Probably Italy, but I know I would not be happy living outside Ireland.

24. If you could time travel for 30 days (and be rich and safe) where would you go and why?

1. Renaissance Florence. It is a particular interest of mine, and I would like to experience it first hand especially if I were safe and rich!

25. You I speculate recall hearing family members talk about the Irish War for Independence. I speculate that your great grand parents by have experienced the famines. How do these ties impact you-do younger people care about these matters at all?

1. I never heard discussion of the War of Independence in my home or amongst family members. I often wonder how my ancestors fared during the famine, but have no idea and there was nothing in my family to give me a clue.  I don’t think that young people are concerned about these matters; to them they are history.

26. Do the giants of Irish lit like Joyce, Yeats and Beckett inspire new writers, make them feel inferior to them or are they just remote figures for professors to worry about?
1. It is hard to believe that these three don’t have some influence on new writers. Influence, however, is nebulous and not always easy to pin down.

27. How important in shaping the literature of Ireland is its proximity to the sea?

A. I can think of only two pieces of Irish literature that may have been shaped in part by the sea: ‘The Islandman’ by Tomas O’Crohan and ‘Twenty Years A-Growing’ by Maurice O’Sullivan. It’s a long time since I read them and I’m sure there must be more but I cannot bring any to mind.

28. What is the biggest mistake you made in your writing career?

A. Sending manuscripts to the wrong kind of publishers.

29. Quick Pick Questions

a. John Synge or Beckett-?   - Beckett

b. dogs or cats  - dogs

c.  best city to inspire a writer-London or Dublin - Dublin

d.  favorite meal to eat out-breakfast, lunch or dinner?  - lunch

e. RTE or BBC -  RTE

f. Coleridge or Wordsworth  -Coleridge

g. Lord Dunsany-still read by any body or a relic of the past.  – a relic of the past

30. OK let us close out on this note-what is your reaction these lines from a famous Irish poet?

A. Great sadness.

I was born to the stink of whiskey and failure

And the scattered corpse of the real.

This is my childhood and country:

The cynical knowing smile

Plastered onto ignorance

Ideals untarnished and deadly

Because never translated to action

And everywhere

The sick glorification of failure.

Our white marble statues were draped in purple

The bars of the prison were born in our eyes

And if reality ever existed

It was a rotten tooth

That couldn't be removed.

Michael O'Loughlin

End

I offer my great thanks to Patrick Semple for taking the time to provide us with such interesting and well considered answers. I expect to be reading his books in the second half of this year

Mel u

An Interview with Patrick Semple by Shauna Gilligan

Interview with Patrick Semple

A few weeks ago, I was honoured to launch Patrick Semple’s latest book Being Published (Code Green Publishing), in NUI Maynooth.

A book in two parts, it tells the story of his personal writing and publishing journey alongside some frank advice about the craft of writing and the industry of publishing. Nestled in honesty, Being Published  is also littered with wonderful witty observations about how writers, politicians, Gardaí, the general public use (or misuse!) grammar. “Standard English,” Semple claims, “is somewhere between the mangled English of Bertie Ahern and Garda-speak.”

Today, Patrick kindly answers some questions about his wriitng life.

Pat, you have published a great variety of books (poetry, novels, travel, memoir). How does your writing self balance all these different types of writing and, of course, teaching and blogging?

Oh Shauna, I haven’t the remotest idea how to answer this question, but I’ll try. If by ‘self balance’ you mean how do all these different types of writing relate to each other, the simple answer is that the same person has written them all. By that I mean the same life experience and the same perspective on life informs all of them. I don’t think that the format used by the writer matters. It’s what he or she says, the content, that matters and I think in all of these formats you will discover what I have distilled from 73 years of trying to make sense of people and of the mystery that surrounds us. With a different sense of ‘self balance’ the answer to this question may be ‘I just do what I have to do.’

Do you have a preferred form of writing? In other words, which form do you find is the best fit for you to express yourself?

I think memoir. Memoir time sequence is pretty simple and straightforward in form, and my travelogue is in effect memoir. Form is much more of an issue in poetry, novel and short story. In so far as memoir is easier to handle it suits me best. This does mean however that memoir may be lazier but not better writing than the others.

Tell me about your writing life on a daily basis.

I’m a lark and not an owl. In my early years of writing I would get out of bed around six o’clock and in my dressing gown sit straight down at the computer and write before I went to work. If I as much as made a cup of tea I might find something to distract me and not write at all. These days I can make the cup of tea without being distracted. First thing I go over and edit what I wrote the previous morning before going on. I write for two or three hours or even longer depending how it goes. Very occasionally in the afternoon I might do a little editing of the morning’s work if I were going over it in my mind, but that would be rare.

Oh that sounds just lovely! So, how would you describe yourself as a writer? Do you feel your religious background and the transition from belief to atheism has informed (and formed) you as a writer?

I have great difficulty thinking of myself as a writer. I didn’t start writing prose until I was 48. I always wrote verse, but I would never refer to myself as a poet. Since you ask me, I would describe myself as a Johnny-come-lately amateur. Yes, I do feel that my religious background has informed much of my writing and my transition from belief to atheism in the last ten years has certainly informed my recent writing. I think, however, that whatforms a writer is a more complex matter.

What’s your favourite part of the writing life? What part of the life of a writer do you least favour?

Being published. Being rejected.

I can relate to those answers, Patrick! Tell me, what writers would you say have had an influence on your writing?

I really don’t know. Perhaps this is for somebody else to glean. I am however conscious occasionally of the influence of Robert Frost on both my prose and verse.

In Being Published you recall how you wrote your first short story at age 48.

“One day I went back to my office after lunch, sat down at my desk and wrote a short story. It was fiction but it was based upon an unlikely couple that I had known who lived in a remote place up the hills in the heart of the country. I called it Bill’s Wife.”

It seems very spontaneous but also brings to mind the advice you often hear – write from what you know. What one line of advice would you give based on this experience?

I’m glad you said ‘one line’ as I’m being verbose. If you feel like writing just sit down and write and don’t worry what anyone else may think of it.

You’ve travelled a lot, some of which you recount in your 2012 Curious Cargo. Can you tell me how travelling puts perspective on Ireland as a country and the Irish? Or does it?

I was born only seventeen years after Independence so as I grew up I heard at every turn the espousal of Ireland and everything Irish, but always felt that ‘self praise is no praise.’ I became aware that this narrow and extravagant Irish Nationalism came from a national inferiority complex that resulted from having been for so long a colonised people. The old saying is true: ‘travel broadens the mind’. Travel has helped me to put my Irishness, of which I am proud, into perspective in that self conscious nationalism is not exclusive to Ireland but that older more confident nations don’t wear it on their sleeve.

What books are on your bedside table right now?

There are four: Coleridge, Poems and Prose selected by Kathleen Raine. The Journal of Aarland Usher. The Spring 2009 edition of Slightly Foxed. The Poolbeg Golden Treasury of Well Loved Poems. I read in bed only if I can’t sleep and I sleep well!

What’s next for Patrick Semple?

Perhaps a sequel to the novel Transient Beings. Five or six people have said to me words to the effect: ‘You can’t leave it there. What happened next?’  I’m not sure however if I can write a sequel.

In that case, I look forward to the sequel, which I’m sure you’ll master! Thank you, Patrick, for answering the questions with such honesty and, at times, humour.

Patrick is a former Church of Ireland clergyman and the author of two volumes of memoir, a novel, travel book and two collections of poems. You can find out more on his website: http://www.patricksemple.ie/

Patrick’s books can be purchased directly from his publishers Code Green, or from the usual online outlets. 

End of Guest Post


I offer my great thanks to Patrick and Shauna for this very interesting interview-

You can read one of Patrick Semple's short stories on  here.

I will soon be posting Q and A Sessions with both writers so please look for those soon.

Bio Data-Shauna Gilligan 

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Shauna Gilligan has worked and lived in Mexico, Spain, India and the UK. She holds an MA in History from University College Dublin having also studied English as an undergraduate. She is completing a PhD in Writing at the University of Glamorgan, Wales and occasionally lectures in NUI Maynooth in Creative Writing.

As part of her research, she is examining suicide and writing processes in a selection of novels by and in a series of interviews with Irish writer Desmond Hogan.

Her work has been published in The Cobalt Review, The Stinging Fly (online), The First Cut, New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writingand in The Ulster Tatler’s Literary Miscellany. She has given public readings of her fiction in Ireland and USA and has presented on writing at academic conferences in Ireland, UK, Germany and USA.

Her debut novel, Happiness Comes From Nowhere is receiving great reviews from all over the world.   

My post on Happiness Comes From Nowhere.

Mel u

"The Pass" a Short Story by Patrick Semple

March 1 to March 31

A Reading Life Special Presentation

a short story by Patrick Semple

Author Bio

A former Church of Ireland clergyman  Patrick has had two volumes of memoir published, a novel and two collections of poems. He was editor of 'A Parish Adult Education Handbook', and ghost wrote 'That Could Never Be', a memoir by Kevin Dalton. He has had short stories published and broadcast.

Patrick currently teaches a creative writing course at National University of Ireland Maynooth, Adult Education Department and for the last three years has done public readings of his work in Kempten, Bavaria.

Shauna Gilligan, author of Happiness Comes From Nowhere has contributed a very interested interview with Patrick Sample for ISSM3 and I will soon be posting it.  With the permission of the author, I wanted to post this story before the interview.  I will also be doing a Q and A Session with him and I am looking forward to that.

This story is protected under international copyright laws and cannot be published or posted online without the permission of the author.

"THE  PASS"

by

Patrick Semple

I hadn’t heard from Joe for a long time. He left a message for me to phone back as soon as I came in. As usual I had to hang on until he had a minute to come to the phone. All he said was: ‘Can you come on Thursday, after lunch?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘OK, see you then,’ and he put down the receiver.

As I approached the town along the estuary road I passed the spot where I first met Joe on a summer day some years before. He had a puncture and flagged me down to borrow a wheel brace. He was fiftyish, his face was round with a serious expression.   He was heavy but tall enough to carry it. He wore a collar and tie, a cardigan over a pair of baggy grey flannels and sandals. He spoke slowly and with a great economy of words. I’d have bet he was a schoolmaster.

‘If you have time when you’re in town I’d like you to have a drink.’   He gave me the name of a pub, ‘The Barrack’.   I thanked him and made a noncommittal reply.

I didn’t take him up on his offer. In fact I forgot all about it but some months later I was back in town again and with time to spend. By chance I came upon ‘The Barrack’ and remembered the puncture. The pub was on a corner with the door set back three or four feet, the overhang supported by a pillar. It was mainly bar with a small snug partitioned off at the far end. It hadn’t seen a coat of paint for at least twenty years. There were two customers in the bar: one sitting at a table reading a paper and one sitting sideways on at the counter gazing out over his pint into the middle distance.   Neither of them was Joe. As I stood up to the counter, from the snug I heard the slow, deep voice that had invited me here in the first place. I tapped the counter and out from the snug behind the bar came Joe. He was wearing the barman’s old-fashioned white apron. He greeted me warmly, glad of the opportunity to repay the debt.

Since that first visit we soon discovered common ground. I always called when I was in the area and from time to time he would phone, as he had done on this occasion.   Joe became my best contact in the south of the county. If he didn’t know about it, it didn’t happen. He never greeted me by name, but apart from that treated me like any other customer. I always sat up at the bar, if possible at one end or the other, and as soon as he wasn’t busy we would talk. First the pleasantries, then a summary of bits and pieces of interest. No matter how important a piece of information he had to give, he would start with the trivia. He didn’t enthuse lest my evaluation of his intelligence didn’t coincide with his own. In fact his judgement was as good if not better than mine and when he sent for me it was always worth the journey. Our conversation was usually interrupted and he spoke so softly and cryptically I had to concentrate very hard not to lose some vital detail.

I arrived at ‘The Barrack’.   There were six or eight people in the bar. Joe took my order, gave me my change and I set in to listen. Normally when he gave me directions I could follow them quite easily but this time the spot was so remote I would need someone with local knowledge. With a barely perceptible movement of his head, like a dealer at an auction, he called up my guide and introduced us.

Jim was about sixty, small, average build, with grey hair showing under a mature cap. He wore a wide American-style tie with a white shirt and a double-breasted blue suit-jacket over a shabby pair of brown corduroys. He had thick glasses with tortoiseshell frames, held together at both hinges by sticking plaster. One lens was even thicker than the other. He perked his head to one side as if to look though the better lens and with a reticent smile said, ‘Pleased to meet you.’ I knew immediately we were going to get on.

The Twin Rock was about fourteen miles away. Jim would bring me as far as the turn to the old quarry where there was a small country pub, and I would leave him there and pick him up on the way back. We finished our drinks and left.

It was half-day and shops were closed. We walked towards the quay, where I had parked the car. It was May and a clear blue sky. Despite an onshore breeze there was warmth in the air. A screech of gulls was crying like banshees over a trawler where crew were dumping offal. A little further out a tern was sitting on the breeze, dipping from time to time to the ruffled surface of the water. The car was like an oven; we opened the windows and set off.

I knew my way until we turned off the main road nine or ten miles out, so I didn’t need the help of my guide at first, but the conversation was slow to get going.

‘What do you work at?’ I asked.

‘Nuttin’ much these days, the auld sight is gone.’ Pause. ‘I’m tryin’ to get the blind pension.’

‘Don’t you need to be totally blind to get that?’

‘Well I nearly am, so I thought I’d get most of it; but the bloody auld TDs round here are no good. I’m after bein’ to more doctors and medicals; I nearly know the charts off be heart.’

Jim would only talk if I started first. After a long silence I said: ‘You’re not married?’ – sure in my mind that he wasn’t.

‘I am,’ he said.

‘Have you family?’

‘Twelve livin’, but there’s only three left in the country. The rest is all in England or America. I have one in Australia.’ After a pause: ‘God, isn’t the country in a shockin’ state. The last two to go, went to England after Christmas. I do have to laugh when I hear our crowd condemnin’ Thatcher when she can provide the jobs and they can’t.   They can’t even afford to give me the blind pension let alone jobs for me children.’

‘Times are hard, right enough, but I think things are looking up,’ I said, trying to lift the conversation a bit.

‘They are, but aren’t the young people gone to the divil with drink and drugs and all this sex?’

‘You’re right,’ I said tersely, not wanting to get into that particular area.

We turned off the main road and Jim directed me through a maze of tiny roads; despite his poor sight his navigation was faultless. We climbed steadily on a narrow road that only had room for one car. The may was coming into bloom. Primroses dotted the ditches on both sides in nature’s inimitable asymmetry. The signs of spring were well established.

I dropped Jim at the pub and gave him a couple of pounds to punch in the time.   I turned up towards the quarry and arrived at a clearing on the right-hand side of the road. I left the car and walked quietly up the road past the quarry gate, as Joe had told me, to a high bank on the left. I climbed the bank and lay on my stomach, surveying the scene. I had a bird’s -eye view of the derelict quarry. From cracks in the long-abandoned quarry face to my left, sprouted grasses, gorse and an occasional small tree. The moorland stretching to my right had worked its way back to the bottom of the rock face.

There was absolute stillness. I noted roughly the point on the ground in tall vegetation beyond the quarry face that Joe had described to me. I lifted my binoculars and searched the sky all round. There was no sign of anything. I lay on my back and waited, scouring the bright, clear sky from time to time. At last, after about an hour and many false alarms, I saw the male harrier coming towards the quarry from my right. At first it was little more than a spot; then a recognisable flight pattern.

I slid back down the bank eight or ten feet to the cover of some low gorse and sat back on my haunches. I was aware of my pulse. Keeping my glasses trained on the approaching male, I glanced at the spot on the ground. Too soon. I looked to the incoming bird. I could now see the blue-grey colour and the black wing tips.   I glanced to my left again. Still no move.

As the cock came closer, his steady wing-beat slowed. He began to lose height and I could see the prey locked in his powerful talons. Before he was above the mouth of the quarry he started to glide. I turned to look at the spot, tingling with expectancy.   There she was, the hen rising from her concealed nesting site towards the cock. With the cock slightly above and ahead she rolled on her back, showing her pure white rump, relief from her overall brown. He dropped the prey. She caught it in a flash in her outstretched talons. Magic. In a split second the pass was complete and the birds parted.

At that instant the crack of a rifle shot shattered the stillness. I saw a sprinkling of feathers come from the cock. The birds flew in opposite directions but I could see from his flight that he was not injured. In seconds both birds dropped and disappeared into the vegetation beyond the quarry face.

I didn’t move for what seemed an age. My heart pounded. I became aware that both my knees pained and one of my legs locked in cramp. I slumped down and sat on the bank. It took some time for the pain to abate. I was thrilled and stunned. My first sight of one of the most spectacular happenings in the bird world, the food pass of the hen harrier, had nearly ended in tragedy.

I crept slowly back up the bank and peered out over the top. Everything was as still as when I arrived. I lay quietly for a long time. There was no sound and no sign of anyone. I went back to the car and sat thinking about what to do. There was nothing for me to do except to tell Joe. I turned the car, and switching off the engine, freewheeled slowly down the lane towards the pub. I thought I might come on the sniper and was half glad that I didn’t.

Jim was waiting. He wanted to buy me a drink but I declined. He finished his pint and we left. I hadn’t told him the purpose of my mission and I assumed Joe hadn’t either. I didn’t know if, from Joe’s point of view, it was all right for him to know but I couldn’t keep it in. Jim listened carefully and when I finished he perked his head to one side, looked up at me and said: the gobshites.’

End

I offer my great thanks to Patrick Semple for allowing me to share this story with my readers.



Mel u