New pamphlet by acclaimed Poet celebrates Banagher's folklore and history

THE launch of “A Place of Pointed Stones: poems and songs inspired by the history and folklore of Banagher” by acclaimed Poet Jessica Traynor, took place online to an appreciative audience on Thursday last, 2nd of December.
After a bit of a technical hitch, the audience were invited to share with Jessica her journey that led to the publication of this collection inspired by the town's history and folklore. This included talking about some of the wonderful people she met along the way, including local historian James Scully. James spoke to the audience about his time spent with Jessica, exploring the town and its rich history. He read extracts from some of the poems to emphasise the narrative.
Jessica said she was deeply honoured to have the opportunity to immerse herself in the history of Banagher, and write poems that pay tribute to this “fascinating part of the world. I was also delighted to have the chance to get to know the people in the area, and be inspired by their passion for their town.”
As well as creating her own work for the pamphlet, Jessica also worked with local transition year students at Banagher College to generate the lyrics for a song paying tribute to Banagher and its environs. Composer Elaine Agnew set the words to music, and the resulting song was performed, under the direction of Geraldine Relph from Music Generation Offaly/Westmeath by 6th class students from St. Rynagh’s National School. The performance of “From the Shannon to St Rynagh’s” was filmed by John Johnston and Shane Claffey, with sound by Oisín Claffey and pianist Andrew Kin-yip Yau and the video was premiered during the launch.
Arts Officer in Offaly County Council Sally O'Leary told the zoom launch that A Place of Pointed Stones was a new commission by Offaly County Council, funded through the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, under the Per Cent for Art Scheme and managed by Offaly County Council Arts Office. She said copies of the pamphlet can be obtained by contacting the Arts Office in Aras an Chontae Tullamore by emailing her at SOLeary@offalycoco.ie
The title of the book comes from one of the possible names for Banagher. There are more than twenty places in Ireland called Banagher (some of them with variant spellings). A possible translation for the word could be “the place of pointed rocks/stones”.
One of the poems is about Banagher Horse Fair, a famous fair dating back to the 1600s. The fair has been controversial in recent years, with some locals wanting it to be moved from the town's Main Street. Others think it should remain on the street. Jessica likes the tradition and the heritage of the event and hopes it will never die out.
As we read Jessica's excellent poems we realise Poetry Ireland Review was correct when it wrote, “This poet is capable of creating canonical work which draws on a contemporary re-thinking of poetic traditions while finding a voice that is wholly her own.” She has a great facility for creating images which resonate deeply in the reader's mind, such as this image in the final poem, “Sound fades into silence again, waiting for the next day to begin."
Another of the poems touches on Charlotte Bronte's father Patrick and his habit of wildly discharging his firearm. Patrick had lived through periods of Luddite and Chartist violence which often targeted clergymen. Being a clergyman himself he remained alert to possible future outbursts of violence. He therefore would place a loaded pistol beside his bed at night, and would discharge the bullet by firing it from his bedroom window across the graveyard every morning. Jessica said there's anecdotal evidence that because Charlotte hated this troublesome behaviour she stole the pistol and threw it into the Shannon from Banagher bridge when she was in the town on honeymoon. “Charlotte throwing her father's pistol into the Shannon I can't confirm,” Jessica told The Midland Tribune. “It was told to me, but I haven't found a source for it; so that's a bit of poetic licence!”
The remedies mentioned in the poem "Cures" were used by the Irish. (Apparently some people still use them). The "Riddles" and "Weather Lore" poems were also an interesting insight into what went through our ancestors' minds on a daily basis.
“The sources for 'Cures', 'Riddles' and 'Weather Lore',” explained Jessica, “are the National Folklore Collection, testimonies by school children and older people from all over Ireland collected by teachers in the 1930s. The ones I've collected here all came from the Banagher region - but you see similar ones recorded all over the country from that era. I've certainly heard lots of anecdotal evidence of cures still being used around the country!”
This is Jessica's poem about Banagher Horse Fair:

The Horse Fair

'why should we care/ If a rose, a hedge, a crocus are uprooted /
Like corpses, remote, crushed, mutilated?'
from 'The War Horse' by Eavan Boland

On an autumn night, the road is clear,
the fair green seething in its concrete grave.
Nowhere to hitch a horse, nowhere
to pasture the thousand ghostly sheep

that flood the narrow road,
caught in the streetlamp’s amber.
Along Church Street, they turn,
horses, sheep, cattle, quick as clouds

passing across the moon,
seeking the green that fed them
through famine, tithes, and civil war –
whinnies echo on St Rynagh’s gravestones.

Through years of unpaved roads
and ambushed mail cars they canter,
the jingle of a sulky carried on the breeze,
hooves sparking on vanished cobbles.

We behind our curtains hear only
the passing music of cartwheels, a bridle bell.
We wake in the morning
expecting to find the streets
awash with muck,

farmers and tanglers slapping hands,
an old woman with a piss-pot
walking the throng shouting
Cack in me can, young man!

Instead, an absence ripens
into bitter sloes that dot
the hedgerows we pass
as we pull on masks,

walk aimless circuits,
yearn for the keen
of a single hoof-beat.