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Poet Louis de Paor

Born in Cork, Ireland in 1961, Louis de Paor is one of Ireland’s foremost Irish language poets. He is a four-time winner of the Seán Ó Ríordáin/Oireachtas Award, the premier award for a new collection of poems in Irish. He is also the recipient of the 2000 Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award, the first poet in Irish to achieve such a distinction. In 2007 he narrated the documentary on Cork poet Séan Ó Ríordáin, considered one of the greatest Irish poets of all time. Paor’s poem Croibhualadh (Heartbeat) was included in ‘Nead an Dreoilín’ (Wren’s Nest), a collection of short films produced for Irish TV exploring the poetry of six living Irish language poets. His most recent project is a bilingual, mixed media revisit of his 2002 poetry collection, Agus Rud Eile De (And Another Thing), republished by Cló Iar-Chonnachta (2010), and features collaborations with artist Kathleen Furey and musician Ronan Browne. He currently resides in Galway, Ireland, and is the Director of the Center for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway.

It was for his collection of poems, Corcach agus Dánta Eile (Cork and other Poems) that Louis de Paor won the 2000 Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for poetry, the leading American award for Irish poets. Cork and other Poems starts with the memory of his departure from Cork in the mid 1980’s to Australia where he worked as a lecturer at the University of Sydney and as presenter and producer of an Irish radio programme in Melbourne. There are occasional references to Australia in the collection, but most of the pieces are set in his native city of Cork and in other parts of Ireland and deal with the “powerful impact of his homecoming” ten years later — his coming to terms with the memories from his Irish past. One of the poems deals with the passing of Irish legend Rory Gallagher during the author’s absence from his beloved Ireland. In the poem, simply titled Rory, Paor recalls the excitement of seeing Rory Gallagher’s performance at Cork City Hall in 1976, with “the waves of pounding feet that rocked the floors of City Hall” and the crowd chanting Rory, Rory, Rory. And he wonders if Rory ever knew how much he meant to the people of Ireland.

I saw Rory about 12 times in all between 1976 and 1994, in the City Hall, the Opera House, and the Arcadia in Cork, at the Mountain Dew Festival in Macroom, and finally in Melbourne. I met him after the first gig in the City Hall in 1976 when I was 15 and he seemed even shyer than I was. I was supposed to meet him in Melbourne but he was too sick after the show. I did interview him though for a radio programme I was presenting at the time on SBS Radio in Melbourne. The interview was by phone and he had just come off stage in London. He was full of chat and a great interviewee.

I suppose what’s behind the poem is the idea that maybe he never fully realized how much he and his music meant to us all and that he was gone before we had a chance to tell him. He is still the yardstick by which I measure all live music and very few have matched him over the years.

With kind permission from the author, I’ve posted a copy of Louis de Paor’s poem Rory in both English and Irish below:

Louis de Paor & John Spillane

If the words sound familiar to you then I suspect you are a fan of another Cork native, John Spillane. John Spillane grew up in the Bishoptown suburb of Cork, Ireland, graduating from University College Cork. In 2003 Spillane won the Meteor Ireland Music Award for Best Folk / Traditional Act. In 2005 he released his critically acclaimed third solo album, Beautiful Dreamer; one of the songs on the album was a tribute to Rory Gallagher titled, ‘A Song for Rory Gallagher.’ Much of the lyrics were taken from Louis de Paor’s poem, Rory. Spillane and Paor have been frequent collaborators. Calling themselves the “Gaelic Hit Factory” they took their music on the road and won the Realta Irish song contest in 2001 and 2002. In 2006 they released a CD of their compositions eponymously titled, The Gaelic Hit Factory. They have been writing great songs together since they sat together in physics class when they were 14:

Myself and Louis sat next to each other at school and have been friends since we were about 14 – we wrote our first epic poem at the back of Physics class in 5th Year. Louis followed the path of poetry and I music. We come together every now and again and write songs together in the Irish Language – Gaeilge. — John Spillane

Eamonn Wall is a native of Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, Ireland, and currently resides in St.Louis, Missouri where he is the Smurfit-Stone Professor of Irish Studies and Professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is a former president of the American Conference for Irish Studies and the author of a book of essays titled, From the Sin-e Cafe to the Black Hills as well as five highly regarded collections of poetry. “Blues for Rory” comes from his third book of poems, The Crosses published by Salmon Publishing. Special thanks to Eamonn Wall and Salmon Publishing for allowing me to post this poem on my site. Eamonn has also written an essay, titled “What in the World”: Reading Rory Gallagher’s Blues, that can be viewed here: What in the World: Reading Rory Gallagher’s Blues.

Blues for Rory

From the Slaney Co. Wexford Mississippi Delta
rode the rails in flannel shirts, warm CIE beer in
hands, in the smoking carriage by big muddy cities
Gorey/Chicago, Arklow/St.Louis, moving on mile
by mile marker by great rivers getting closer still
to hearing the legendary bluesman from Cork City
play on his battered strat the blues, and sing I could’ve
had religion but my little girl wouldn’t let me pray,
that kind of girl hard to come by in the Slaney
Co. Wexford Mississippi Delta though neither did
we pray too much being all prayed out since
Confirmation. Rory Gallagher at the National
Stadium after Christmas, the first live gig ever for
me except for wedding bands in the Slaney Co.
Wexford Nashville Tennessee as I served across
the counter large macks to speeded up Country
Roads, couples gliding across the maple floor. All
confused in Connolly/Union Station the route to
Harold’s Cross to breathe the raw elixir of the
blues, Rory Gallagher’s sweat falling on his guitar.
I could touch his feet if the bouncers turned their
heads, who can describe the thrill of knowing it all
for the first time, first bottleneck solo couple of
numbers in? Lord, take that sinner boy home &
I’m here on the prairie now with new CD;
from Amazon.com, window breeze from the deep
south wafting from tree-lined street to tawny alley,
potholes open wide, the rusted trucks, loose gravel,
night light yellow flickering, where for hours the
repo man stood with his forms and magazines,
the world not so bright now for your absence,
Rory Gallagher, Can’t believe it’s true, I can’t
believe it’s true. How we walked by the Grand
Canal in wet midnight winter air, lost looking for
Ranelagh, electrified & silenced by the wonder
of it all, not caring if we ever made it home to
Model County Wexford, hotbed of hurling, home
of strawberries, fields of barley & country music.

— from The Crosses. Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare: Salmon Publishing, 2000