From as far back as I can remember I have had a fondness for London; and that despite the fact, that for centuries, London was the hub of a vast Empire, and a thorn in the side of my own country, Ireland. And it is an unlikely sentiment for another reason also.
I grew up by the sea.
But although I took for granted the clean fresh air, and the vast open spaces, I was adaptable. So, perhaps it is in the genes, and that explains why, as a small boy, I used to stand on my grandmothers' doorstep, absorbed in the goings on in the street. She lived in Derry, in Foyle Street, on a road that ran parallel to the river. It was a grey place, narrow and heaving with traffic, and people, who seemed to pass in an unending stream. They are memories that I will take to the grave, and leave behind, in this poem:
(1)
Sinister it was with its windows black and barred
gawping at me from across the street.
Relentless, as it consumed its prey
protesting, as it slithered into the arched mouth.
Intense the mingling and numerous the shapes
that passed in that narrow confine,
where man and beast, outsider and insider
jostled for their rightful place.
Cars and the Red Hand of Ulster.
Hooves in dry laboured clatter.
Pigs pleading, hay akimbo.
And the wide eyes of Cantrell & Cochrane;
and the sleek electric bread-van.
Barrels - refined shapes layer on layer - passing.
People, and the skittish horse;
it's cartwheels twisting like windmills.
Space - Silence - Fear - and
Defiance !
_____
Now what is significant about Derry in the context of this blog, is the link with London. Hence, Londonderry. A name that in today's peaceful Ireland, still has the capacity to raise a few heckles. So don't be surprised if you go there and find the roadsigns defaced, so that only that portion of the name, "derry" is visible. And historically, we have the seventeenth century merchants from London to blame, or thank, for the change. Because it was these merchants, who, while in the ascendency, took it upon themselves to change the name, from Derry, to Londonderry.
Now one of the ways that the Irish had, of coping with the pain of conquest and subjection, is captured in this song. It takes the form of a letter from an Irishman working in London, to his sweetheart Mary. She is in the country, and he, in effect, is describing one of the great wonders of the world. But, with a rich vein of humour and, a good deal of exaggeration:
Where the people are working by day and by night.
They don’t sow potatoes, nor barley nor wheat,
But there’s gangs of them digging for gold in the street –
At least when I asked them that’s what I was told,
So I just took a hand at this diggin’ for gold,
But for all that I found there, I might as well be,
Where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.
You remember young peter O’ Loughlin, of course –
Well, here he is now at the head of the Force.
I met him today, I was crossin’ the Strand,
And he stopped the whole street with one wave of his hand:
And there we stood talking of days that are gone,
While the whole population of London looked on;
But for all these great powers, he’s wishful like me,
To be back where the dark Mourne’s sweep down to the sea.
_____
Now apart from this staple fare, I have another reason for having an early feeling of attachment to London. And it had nothing whatever to do with my Irish identity.
I was sixteen, working, and living in digs, when Donald came to stay. A family man, he was living apart from his wife and teenage daughters. And it was apparent from his demeanour, that he had been through some form of crisis in his life. Among the things that he brought with him, was a recording of the song, On London Bridge. He played it often. And though I never discovered what had happened to him, something in his response to this song, suggested, that in some way, it mirrored his own personal tragedy. Here it is in part:
I walked on London Bridge last night
I saw you by the lamppost light
Then bells rang out in sleepy Londontown
And London Bridge came tumbling down.
The sky was hidden by the mist
But just like magic when we kissed
The moon and stars were shining all around
When London Bridge came tumbling down.
Just you and I over the river
Two hearts suspended in space
And there so high over the river
A miracle took place.
Two empty arms found love to hold
Two smoke rings turned to rings of gold
I bless the night we met in Londontown
When London Bridge came tumbling down.
_____
Now whatever London might have symbolised to the oppressed Irish, part of what is fascinating about it is, that in the distant past it could be a dangerous place to live in, even if you were English. Something that I want to reflect on through the poetry of Sir. Thomas Wyatt and Andrew Marvell.
Sir Thomas Wyatt, born at Maidstone in Kent in 1503, was popular at the court of Henry VIII. But not withstanding his popularity, he was twice imprisoned in the Tower of London; and though charged with treason, he survived. He was Henry’s ambassador on a difficult mission to Charles V in Spain, and tradition has it, that Ann Boleyn was his mistress, prior to her marriage to the King. Although he died young, among the many poems that Marvell left for posterity, was this, “They Flee From Me”.
On the face of it, this is a love poem. But there are those who believe that it is more than that. That besides being an example of how Wyatt used poetry as a vehicle for his intelligence, it was a means whereby he coped with his changing moods, when caught up in the factional intrigues at court. In that context, the suggestion is, that this poem is an allegory:
They flee from me that sometimes did me seek
With naked foot stalking within my chamber
Once I have seen them, gentle, tame, and meek
That now are wild, and do not once remember,
That sometimes they have put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range
Busily seeking in continual change.
Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once especial
In this array, after a pleasant guise
When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small,
And therewithal sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”
It was no dream; for I lay broad awaking:
But all is turn’d now through my gentleness,
Into a bitter fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness;
And she also to use new fangleness.
But since that I unkindly so am served:
How like ye this, what hath she now deserved.
_____
Now among the many momentous events in English life, that were inextricably linked to colonial rule in Ireland, were the Civil Wars fought in England, between 1642-1651. They were part of a struggle for power between the Royalists on the one hand, and Parliament and Puritans on the other. In the end Parliament and the Puritans triumphed. Oliver Cromwell came to power, and the King, Charles I, was beheaded. In time the monarchy would be restored, but not before the concept of “the divine right of kings” to rule, had been consigned “to the dustbin of history”. In the future a monarch might rule, but only with the consent of Parliament.
Someone who lived through these tempestuous times, was the poet Andrew Marvell. And though he was an admirer of Cromwell, he had doubts about him. And he had sympathy for the executed king; sentiments, that are expressed in one of his finest poems, “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland”. In it, and understandably from an English perspective, Marvell celebrates Cromwell’s success in Ireland, and his virtues.
His achievement:
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do
That does both act and know.
And who better to attest to Cromwell’s virtues, than the vanquished:
They can affirm his praises best
And have, though overcome, confest
How good he is, how just
And fit for higher trust.
But perhaps Marvell’s most powerful expression of poetic sentiment, comes in those stanzas related to the King’s execution. He died unrepentant of his actions, and still believing in “the divine right of kings” to rule. But at the moment of death, Marvell suggests, that he neither sought to blame, or call for divine retribution on his executioners. Accused, and found guilty of high treason, he was still a King. And he would die like a King:
He neither common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe’s edge did try.
Nor call’d the God’s, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
_____
Now if London could be a place of danger, it could, and often was, a place of refuge for the Irish. And it is a feature of the long history of London, that the poor and the destitute, have always been in focus. Among those to whom credit is due for this, is Henry Mayhew. A journalist, (just one aspect of an extraordinary and varied career), whose writings were published in 1851, under the heading, “London Labour And The London Poor”. It was one of the seminal works of its time; and you don’t have to go much beyond the first page, to be captivated by the style of writing and presentation of those times. In Vol. 1., Mayhew was succinct and to the point:
“London Labour And The London Poor:
A Cyclopaedia Of The Conditions And Earnings
Of
Those That Will work,
Those That Cannot Work, And
Those That Will Not Work.”
Under the heading, The Street Irish, Mayhew’s writing seeks to account for the significant increase in the number of Irish trading on the streets of London. Including women and children there were about 10,000 of them; and those that weren’t selling oranges and nuts, were trading in fish and vegetables:
“One of the principal reason why the Irish costermongers have increased so extensively of later years, is to be found in the fact that the labouring classes, (and of them chiefly the class employed in the culture of land,) have been driven over from “the sister isle” more thickly for the last four or five years than formerly. Several circumstances have conspired to effect this. – First, they were driven over by the famine, when they could not procure, food to eat. Secondly, they were found to take refuge in this country by the evictions, when their landlords had left them no roof to shelter them in their own. (The shifts, the devices, the plans, to which numbers of these poor creatures had recourse, to raise the means of quitting Ireland for England—or for anywhere—will present a very remarkable chapter at some future period.) Thirdly, though the better class of small farmers have emigrated from Ireland, in hope of “bettering themselves,” have mostly sought the shores of North America, still some who have reached this country have at last settled into street-sellers. And fourthly, many who have come over here only for the harvest, have either been induced or compelled to stay.”
And for many it was a precarious existence:
“The majority of the Irish street-sellers of both sexes” he told us, “beg, and often very eloquently, as they carry on their trade; and I was further assured, that, but for this begging, some of them might starve outright.”
_____
Now I have never been in danger of starvation. But, like many of my countrymen, I too, gravitated towards London in search of work.
In Clerkenwell, in my student days, I spent the summer vacation, pushing trolleys loaded with freshly laundered towels from A to B. And a year later, a similar length of time peeling potatoes, in the Great Eastern Hotel in Liverpool Street. After which, and as a sop to weeks of boredom, I purchased a set of gold cufflinks, that I have, and use, to this day.
And London is the place where I met my wife, at a party that I didn’t want to go to, but went for the sake of a friend. When we arrived the place was crowded. But the hostess, (whom I had met in passing a few weeks previously), grabbed my hand, and pulling me through the living room to the kitchen, told me that there was someone there that she wanted me to meet. Introduced, Jenny told me that she was a Marxist, and I in turn, that I was a Catholic. Which is proof, (if it were needed), that we got down to business – right away!
It is the place where we bought our first home, and where our son Leo was born. And where, in those early years, we played cat and mouse with government, in our attempt to end the nuclear arms race.
And London is the place where I had a bright idea, when I had more to drink than was good for me. Full of exuberance, I ran up the down escalator at Blackfriars, only to find myself heading back down head first on my back, with the money from my pockets clattering ahead of me down the escalator. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to hold my head high, in anticipation of reaching the ground.
And I worked in Fleet Street. when Fleet Street was still the hub of the newspaper industry. It was a unique and vibrant place to be, as were its many “watering holes”: The Tipperary, The Cheshire Cheese, The Cartoonist, the Ludgate Cellars; and at the top of Fetter Lane, the mischievously named, Printer's Devil.
Well it is twenty years since we lived in London, and we are going back in May, as part of the celebrations for Jenny’s sixtieth birthday. And we are going with our friends of a lifetime, Ranjana and Pradeep, whom we also met in London. And it is because we are going back, that I have told you all of this; because I would like you to know what went before, before I tell you - what came after.
© Cormac McCloskey
1. Foyle St (1),
by Cormac McCloskey. 11-29 April, 2000
2. The Mountains of Mourne,
by Percy French. 1854-1920
3. On London Bridge
by Jo Stafford
4. Sir Thomas Wyatt & Andrew Marvell:
Any good poetry anthology or, the web.
5. London Labour And The London Poor:
The classical study of the culture of poverty
and the criminal classes in the 19th-century. In 4 volumes. v. 1
Note: This blog, "London" was first published on Windows Live Spaces, by me, on 14th April 2008
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