OPINION (AN COLÚN): A Silver River walk and a Donegal poet's wisdom

WHILE walking along the banks of the Silver River near Cadamstown on Saturday afternoon I paused and looked at large blocks of blue-grey rock on the river bed. This was Silurian rock, which formed from sediments laid down on the floor of the Iapetus Ocean, between 440 and 420 million years ago.
Over many millions of years Silurian rock was lifted and folded and then eroded to a flat continent. Silurian rock would normally not be visible, because it would be covered by the rocks of subsequent geological periods, and by soil and vegetation. However, through a process of folding, lifting and tilting these rocks sometimes become exposed, surrounded by younger rocks. When older rocks are visible amidst younger rocks, geologists call it an "inlier.”
When the Iapetus Ocean retreated, it was replaced by an Old Red Sandstone Continent which existed between 300 and 400 million years ago. Rivers flowed across the Old Red Sandstone Continent, depositing successive layers of gravels and finer sediments as they altered their course and, from time to time, flooded the land. The deposits hardened to rock which can be seen at many places along the Silver River gorge, in the river bed, the cliffs and rocks all around. This rock is coarse Red Sandstone and softer Red Siltstones.
Therefore, if I was transported back in time 430 million years, remaining in my Silver River location I would need a submarine to survive (!) as I would be at the bottom of the mighty Iapetus Ocean. Transported back 380 million years ago I would probably find myself in a wide, slow-moving river and I would have to start swimming to reach the river bank and land. Geologists point out that Ireland came into being about 60 million years ago.
I love thinking about all these vast geological distances of time. I enjoy thinking about the facts and figures, the science of it all; and I like to reflect on the Creator who set it all in motion at the dawn of time and space 13.8 billion years ago.
People often think of poetry and metaphysics as being contradictory to science, but I like to think of them as being complementary. I also often think of the Creator. Moments of such reflection are likely when contemplating rock formations in mountain river gorges.
After returning from my Saturday walk I returned to reading the Diaries of the Donegal poet William Allingham (a book kindly given to me as a present by Banagher historian James Scully). Allingham stood apart from many of his 19th Century contemporaries because he had an original mind. His friend Tennyson was of a similar ilk. One day Tennyson said to Allingham, “You're not orthodox, and I can't call myself orthodox. Two things however I have always been firmly convinced of - God - and that death will not end my existence.”
Allingham wrote beautifully on the subject of God on a number of occasions in his Diaries. “We cannot in the least describe, or comprehend, or even think Deity,” he wrote. “And yet we can believe in Deity, and that belief is not fantastic, but natural, sound, and reasonable. There is to me no conception of the Universe possible save as the dominion of Power and Wisdom, unfathomably great, yet in sympathy with my own intelligent nature; a Greatness presenting itself to me (when I dare at all to shape it) as a true Personality, comprising all that man at his best in measured degree feels, thinks, and is; and much more.”
Allingham disagreed with people who argued that the universe came into being by mere chance alone, who didn't believe in any First Cause. “...that the Universe,” he wrote, “could come together by chance was, and is, altogether incredible. The evidence to me of God - and the only evidence - is the feeling I have deep down in the very bottom of my heart of right and truth and justice. I believe that all things are governed by Eternal Goodness and Wisdom, and not otherwise; but we cannot see and never shall see how it is all managed...I have no kind of definite belief or expectation whatever as to the Future - only that all will be managed with wisdom, the very flower of wisdom.”
Another friend of Allingham's, Thomas Carlyle, agreed. Carlyle said to Allingham, “One thing is firmly held to - God, who arranges and decides all: this I am thankful to say I keep. And whoever uses honestly the light placed in his own mind, acts as the voice of God tells him, will find satisfaction therein, and not otherwise.”