This place, the 'glen of the ducks', is over a couple of hills from Glencolumbkille in south-west Donegal, a remote spot usually accessed from the road down to the beautiful little place that is Port.
As it turns out, one of the books on my desk is 'Caitlin: A Warring Absence', written by Dylan's wife with George Tremlett. It's described by the Times as 'brutally frank and often painfully revealing', which seems about right from what I've read so far. I picked up last month in Foyle Books in Derry for £3.
Unfortunately she doesn't seem to add anything about Dylan's Donegal experiences. He was in Glenlough in the summer of 1935, and she met 'this bright young spark' in 1936.
Here's one account of Dylan's trip to Donegal from Jean Rice at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IrelandGenWeb/2002-12/1040855999
Fame came early in the short life of brilliant Welsh poet Dylan THOMAS from Swansea. When he was 20, he played his part in London's literary scene of the day. He lead a rather Bohemian life-style, including heavy drinking. A friend of the poet, Geoffrey GRIGSON, at last urged Dylan to leave London for awhile and made arrangements for a place of retreat. As a result, Dylan THOMAS spent the summer of 1935 in Ireland, in a small cottage in Co. Donegal. There may seen to be a certain irony in the fact that GRIGSON chose Ireland in his attempts to withdraw alcoholic beverages from THOMAS.
THOMAS wrote of rugged and breath-taking Co. Donegal -- "Here in Ireland, I'm further away than ever from the permanent world. I'm writing by candle-light all alone in a cottage facing the Atlantic --- Soon I'm going out for a walk in the dark by myself; that'll make happy as hell."
To another friend he wrote, "I am ten miles from the nearest human being , with the exception of the deaf farmer who gives me food," referring to Dan WARD and his Irish-speaking wife Rose, who provided meals and sometimes a bit of poitin (illicit whiskey). There was fishing up in the mountain lakes or walks down at the seashore, and late at night Thomas often joined the WARDs for a chat in front of the peatfire listening to local lore. Only once a week THOMAS would bring himself to walk the ten miles to the next pub, more often than not in tough weather. "It rains and it rains. All the damned seagulls are fallen angels."
Originally, this place at the end of the world had been discovered by American artist Rockwell KENT in the 1920s. Kent had converted an old donkey-stable into a makeshift studio, but finally abandoned it again when he got weary of too much solitude. This former studio is the cottage that Dylan THOMAS rented in 1935. The Glencolumbkille district where Dylan Thomas spent his holidays is just one of at least three parts of beautiful and wild Donegal that are suitable for hill-walking.
THOMAS wrote of rugged and breath-taking Co. Donegal -- "Here in Ireland, I'm further away than ever from the permanent world. I'm writing by candle-light all alone in a cottage facing the Atlantic --- Soon I'm going out for a walk in the dark by myself; that'll make happy as hell."
To another friend he wrote, "I am ten miles from the nearest human being , with the exception of the deaf farmer who gives me food," referring to Dan WARD and his Irish-speaking wife Rose, who provided meals and sometimes a bit of poitin (illicit whiskey). There was fishing up in the mountain lakes or walks down at the seashore, and late at night Thomas often joined the WARDs for a chat in front of the peatfire listening to local lore. Only once a week THOMAS would bring himself to walk the ten miles to the next pub, more often than not in tough weather. "It rains and it rains. All the damned seagulls are fallen angels."
Originally, this place at the end of the world had been discovered by American artist Rockwell KENT in the 1920s. Kent had converted an old donkey-stable into a makeshift studio, but finally abandoned it again when he got weary of too much solitude. This former studio is the cottage that Dylan THOMAS rented in 1935. The Glencolumbkille district where Dylan Thomas spent his holidays is just one of at least three parts of beautiful and wild Donegal that are suitable for hill-walking.
There's an article in today's 'Donegal News' - 'When Dylan Thomas took to the poitín in Donegal'. It draws on the expertise of Termon schoolteacher Christy Gillespie, who's working on a book on Glenlough. He was interviewed by BBC Wales about Thomas this week.
Christy says Grigson, Thomas's literary agent, came with him by train to Killybegs, and then they continued to Glencolumbkille, staying at what's now Roarty's Bar. Then they went on to Glenlough.
Christy adds: "Grigson's intention was to get Thomas away from the bright lights of London for a recuperation holiday, but little did he know that he had brought him to the poitín-making capital of Donegal."
Whatever about the drinking, it seems Thomas composed six poems while at Glenlough. One was 'I, In My Intricate Image', which ends -
This was the god of beginning in the intricate seawhirl,
And my images roared and rose on heaven's hill.
Another was 'Altarwise by Owl Light'. Here it is (or at least a close approximation) from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/altarwise-by-owl-light/
Altarwise by Owl-Light
Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house
The gentleman lay graveward with his furies;
Abaddon in the hangnail cracked from Adam,
And, from his fork, a dog among the fairies,
The atlas-eater with a jaw for news,
Bit out the mandrake with to-morrows scream.
Then, penny-eyed, that gentlemen of wounds,
Old cock from nowheres and the heaven's egg,
With bones unbuttoned to the half-way winds,
Hatched from the windy salvage on one leg,
Scraped at my cradle in a walking word
That night of time under the Christward shelter:
I am the long world's gentlemen, he said,
And share my bed with Capricorn and Cancer.
Death is all metaphors, shape in one history;
The child that sucketh long is shooting up,
The planet-ducted pelican of circles
Weans on an artery the genders strip;
Child of the short spark in a shapeless country
Soon sets alight a long stick from the cradle;
The horizontal cross-bones of Abaddon,
You by the cavern over the black stairs,
Rung bone and blade, the verticals of Adam,
And, manned by midnight, Jacob to the stars.
Hairs of your head, then said the hollow agent,
Are but the roots of nettles and feathers
Over the groundworks thrusting through a pavement
And hemlock-headed in the wood of weathers.
First there was the lamb on knocking knees
And three dead seasons on a climbing grave
That Adam's wether in the flock of horns,
Butt of the tree-tailed worm that mounted Eve,
Horned down with skullfoot and the skull of toes
On thunderous pavements in the garden of time;
Rip of the vaults, I took my marrow-ladle
Out of the wrinkled undertaker's van,
And, Rip Van Winkle from a timeless cradle,
Dipped me breast-deep in the descending bone;
The black ram, shuffling of the year, old winter,
Alone alive among his mutton fold,
We rung our weathering changes on the ladder,
Said the antipodes, and twice spring chimed.
What is the metre of the dictionary?
The size of genesis? the short spark's gender?
Shade without shape? the shape of the Pharaohs echo?
(My shape of age nagging the wounded whisper.)
Which sixth of wind blew out the burning gentry?
(Questions are hunchbacks to the poker marrow.)
What of a bamboo man among your acres?
Corset the boneyards for a crooked boy?
Button your bodice on a hump of splinters,
My camel's eyes will needle through the shroud.
Loves reflection of the mushroom features,
Still snapped by night in the bread-sided field,
Once close-up smiling in the wall of pictures,
Arc-lamped thrown back upon the cutting flood.
The gentleman lay graveward with his furies;
Abaddon in the hangnail cracked from Adam,
And, from his fork, a dog among the fairies,
The atlas-eater with a jaw for news,
Bit out the mandrake with to-morrows scream.
Then, penny-eyed, that gentlemen of wounds,
Old cock from nowheres and the heaven's egg,
With bones unbuttoned to the half-way winds,
Hatched from the windy salvage on one leg,
Scraped at my cradle in a walking word
That night of time under the Christward shelter:
I am the long world's gentlemen, he said,
And share my bed with Capricorn and Cancer.
Death is all metaphors, shape in one history;
The child that sucketh long is shooting up,
The planet-ducted pelican of circles
Weans on an artery the genders strip;
Child of the short spark in a shapeless country
Soon sets alight a long stick from the cradle;
The horizontal cross-bones of Abaddon,
You by the cavern over the black stairs,
Rung bone and blade, the verticals of Adam,
And, manned by midnight, Jacob to the stars.
Hairs of your head, then said the hollow agent,
Are but the roots of nettles and feathers
Over the groundworks thrusting through a pavement
And hemlock-headed in the wood of weathers.
First there was the lamb on knocking knees
And three dead seasons on a climbing grave
That Adam's wether in the flock of horns,
Butt of the tree-tailed worm that mounted Eve,
Horned down with skullfoot and the skull of toes
On thunderous pavements in the garden of time;
Rip of the vaults, I took my marrow-ladle
Out of the wrinkled undertaker's van,
And, Rip Van Winkle from a timeless cradle,
Dipped me breast-deep in the descending bone;
The black ram, shuffling of the year, old winter,
Alone alive among his mutton fold,
We rung our weathering changes on the ladder,
Said the antipodes, and twice spring chimed.
What is the metre of the dictionary?
The size of genesis? the short spark's gender?
Shade without shape? the shape of the Pharaohs echo?
(My shape of age nagging the wounded whisper.)
Which sixth of wind blew out the burning gentry?
(Questions are hunchbacks to the poker marrow.)
What of a bamboo man among your acres?
Corset the boneyards for a crooked boy?
Button your bodice on a hump of splinters,
My camel's eyes will needle through the shroud.
Loves reflection of the mushroom features,
Still snapped by night in the bread-sided field,
Once close-up smiling in the wall of pictures,
Arc-lamped thrown back upon the cutting flood.
-----------------------
It's seems critics are divided on the merits of this poem - a masterwork, or the wilfully obscure product of the mind of an schizoid alcoholic? For some thoughts on what it's all about see http://www.enotes.com/topics/altarwise-by-owl-light and more usefully https://www.scribd.com/doc/85229220/What-are-we-to-make-of-Dylan-Thomas-s-Altarwise-by-Owl-Light
I wasn't aware before now that there's a website offering guided walks to Dylan's pad in Glenlough - http://www.dylanthomasdonegal.com
It begins with a quote from Grigson (who Caitlin says Dylan didn't like) -
“My nicest recollections of Dylan are in Ireland. He loved footling about there, by the lakes above the farm. Or on the edge of the sea looking at the gannets.” – Geoffrey Grigson, poet and agent.
Although a ruin, the cottage where Thomas once lived still exists. Accessible only on foot, the journey takes 1-2 hours, traversing some of the most spectacular wild and rugged scenery, the west coast of Ireland has to offer.
The site features a link to a documentary about Dylan Thomas's time in Donegal, which I'd forgotten about. It opens with Donegal poet Francis Harvey reading his poem 'Dylan in Glenlough'.
From the film -
"I'm living in a funny dimension here," Dylan wrote to a friend, talking how he spent his days. It seems he built a stone bridge over the stream at the front door. Once a week he headed the ten miles to O'Donnell's bar in Meenaneary.
But he became lonely, as "lonely as Christ sometimes". And he was afraid of the dark. He tired of Glenlough's charms - "I can't see a landscape, scenery is just scenery to me."
Looks like you can do the Glenlough walk in a morning with Peter Alexander as your guide. This again from http://www.dylanthomasdonegal.com
ALL GUIDED TOURS MUST BE BOOKED IN ADVANCE. MIN FOUR PERSONS, MAX EIGHT. (BOOKINGS ARE SUBJECT TO WEATHER CONDITIONS)
THE WALK
Overall length: Approx 5km
Time: 3.5 hours
Level: Moderate
Time: 3.5 hours
Level: Moderate
8.30am: Leave from outside the Ulster Bank in Ardara.
9.00am: Arrive at beginning of walk.
10.30am: Dylan Thomas cottage. Break for tea.
11.00am: Leave for Port
12.30am: Arrive Port. Transport RV.
1pm: Lunch in Nancy’s.
9.00am: Arrive at beginning of walk.
10.30am: Dylan Thomas cottage. Break for tea.
11.00am: Leave for Port
12.30am: Arrive Port. Transport RV.
1pm: Lunch in Nancy’s.
Here are a couple of links from Peter's site -
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