The Aerodrome

Heaney  recounts  the story of a wartime visit to his local airfield. The visit becomes a parable to do with a child’s insecurity generated, perhaps, by an awareness of temptation and resistance. The airfield is long since out of commission, first disused then re-developed (first … back to grass, then after that to warehouses and brickfields). Its iconic centre-piece (wartime grey control-tower) has retained its control status rebuilt and glazed into a hard-edged CEO-style villa.  Post-war changes in attitude and style introduced a new lexis; here the ‘hard edge’ of uncompromising money-making opportunities. The distinctive wartime features have disappeared. The aerodrome is a part of mid-Ulster’s history transporting the poet’s memory (Easter Monday 1944) and his senses (smell of daisies […]