the soul of man under socialism

 

Strolling in the undulating emerald randoms of the Curragh of Kildare.

Famed to generations of Irish schoolchildren from their geography class as "machaire mor reidh," ie a flat level plain, the Curragh, in keeping with Irish traditions of paradoxical imprecision, is fairly hilly for a plain.

As I walk, I come upon an old British Army graveyard nestling amid the hills.

Above the incongruously ornate arched entrance a carved insignia proclaims a two letter paean and a date,

"VR

1869"

The letters stand for Victoria Regina or more colloquially: "Queen Victoria woz ere."

Just think.

When this was carved the British were the most powerful nation on the planet.

No known empire ever reached the extent theirs did.

But history has moved on.

All the glories of 1869 are, as Rudyard Kipling predicted, one with Nineveh and Tyre.

Nowadays of course the old graveyard hidden in the Curragh hills is managed by the Department of Defence of the Republic of Ireland.

The day is going down.

The sunset rolls old gold along the horizon.

The air is deliciously cold.

Over a low stone wall I can see a lissom enough lady photographer with a tripod angling to get some sort of a shot of the amber light of dusk through the headstones.

I smile fondly.

A few decades ago I was commissioned to film a book cover for Liam Geraghty, a contemporary poet, in this graveyard.

I had found the task quite challenging.

For all the riches of its history, it's a plain enough little graveyard with not much to photograph.

Ditto Liam Geraghty.

My solution was to photograph him from low to the ground jumping over the headstones waving a multi colloured umbrella like a parachute.

Now that's art.

This evening the impulse strikes me to go talk to the present photographer.

I call my dogs to heel.

We walk up to the entrance.

My eyes alight on a modern public information sign.

It is to the left of the entrance and slightly lower down but much more imperious in its way than Good Queen Vickie's logo.

It proclaims:

"DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE.

NO DOGS ALLOWED.

THIS RULE WILL BE ENFORCED BY THE COUNTY COUNCIL DOG WARDEN."

Something crunches under my feet.

I look down.

Even here, even in wilderness, I am standing in a sea of lagar tins, many bearing the elegaic brand name Orchard Thieves.

I stroll along the perimetre of the low stone wall.

It rambles up a hill and down a hill on this flat, level plain.

At the rear of the cemetary I find what I expected.

Five nitrous oxide gas cannisters from last night's drug orgy.

Lying beside the drug paraphenalia is a camisole top, mint green, spattered with an indeterminate substance.

Property of a lady.

Not for the first time the thought occurs to me that the heroes at the Department of Defence, in their obsession with dog poohs, are picking the wrong enemies.