Clonmany to Ahascragh

in memory of Rory Kavanagh Heaney dedicates this touching sequence to the deceased son of a long-standing friend. The family is very well known to Heaney but only mentioned by name via the dedication. The loss of a child is completely alien to the poet. The title’s place names are indicative both of Rory’s parental origins and of the trek the couple made to share family with their individual families. The tears of Rory’s family and friends including the poet’s have ground to a halt (the rest of us have no weeping left). Reading and re-reading Heaney’s poem will provide a fitting requiem (do it for you) – peat bog trees that weep (willows … on Leitrim Moss), tears visible […]