Irish Jesuit Province

Why Go to Glendalough?Author(s): Michael SweetmanSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 77, No. 909 (Mar., 1949), pp. 124-126Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515953 .

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WHY GO TO GLENDALOUGH ? By MICHAEL SWEETMAN, SJ.

THIS valley must surely be a place of pilgrimage; it is the

spiritual home of Dublin's Patrons, Saints Kevin and Laurence,

receptacle of their sacrifices, engraved with the seven symbols of their love. Certainly the crowds are here?see them streaming down the road this Sunday, Feast of Kevin, in June, a long prog

ression of buses, cars and cyclists. Then they take to the boats, cross the lake and climb precariously to the little hole in the cliff?

St. Kevin's Bed. Is this an ancient ritual to honour the Saint? Do

they pray there? Well, perhaps under cover of the "

three wishes "

you are told to have while crouching in the narrow smooth-rocked

cave, some romantic boy or girl may ask for victory or vocation, to

be a Saint like Kevin or to die a martyr for Ireland and the Faith.

Maybe. All that appears is vulgarity, very close to mockery. No, even to-day no one is thinking of Kevin; even on this one day you

will not hear the solemn intonation of the Rosary wafted from the

boats gliding quietly across the lake in the evening; nor will you find

any of the Seven Churches filled with worshippers to honour his

work or seeking inspiration in his memory.

To-day, like every other day of the tourist season, there is a kind

of dance-hall happiness in the air, restless and self-centred; this crowd

would be more at home in Bray, with concrete esplanade and

saxophone blaring nonsense from the hill. This fastidious valley

really adds nothing to their self-conscious merriment, their joy is not

in it but in themselves, so it seems to withdraw its secrets from

their unsympathetic approach, to frown resentfully on their uncon

scious insults and to rebuff their well-meant but undiscerning hearti

ness. They could enjoy themselves as well elsewhere?I wish they would.

The "

civilisation "

that dominated our country during the 18th and

19th centuries robbed our more educated classes of love of holy

places. It professed to despise the material aids to religion as

superstitious and idolatrous. Its adherents became insensible tc

the atmosphere of prayer enshrined within lichened walls; they scorned the sanctity in bones that had even upheld the living

spirit of a Saint. And so they preserved our holy places?if 124

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GLENDALOUGH

at all?as queer museum pieces to grace their lawns and mansions

with a stolen antiquity, or as tourist attractions for a new hotel. The

tombs, the bones and bodies of the Blessed were neglected or

destroyed, so that there are scarcely any left now in reverence. Clon

macnoise lies lonely and unhonoured within the wide, smooth flowing curve of the Shannon; Cashel stands aloof, cold and windswept on

its hill, while here in Glendalough, the Cathedral and Kevin's Kitchen

ring continuously with the loud guffaws and flirtatious cackles of the

"trippers". This Glendalough, built by Nature and perfected by Grace to stir the soul to deep feeling and the urgent longings for

Infinity! It calls to you for reverence; in return it will inspire you. Come on it first from over the heather hills and young growing

forest, where Derrybawn Mountain meets Lugduff, and it will take

your breath away by its charm. Maybe it is late spring as

you look down over the wide-domed tops of the oaks, tinged light brown and yellowish-green; the outer buds are breaking gently into

leaf; the strong grey arms upholding them are still clear beneath.

The birch and hazel straggle among the crevasses and along the

shelves of the cliff below Spink, independent and undisciplined. They, with the dark holly and the airy rowan, are the native inhabitants,

following naturally the he of the land, not drawing an arbitrary line

across the mountainside as the forest of spruce and Douglas fir does,

straight and artificial, like the American state boundaries that

follow stiffly the lines of longitude. But the Scots pine on ?ama

derry are almost naturalized, nearly inevitable elements of the scene.

From here the Upper Lake, the dominating feature, looks genial and

alluring. But Glendalough is a moody vale and in her stirrings of our spirit

she does not leave unmoved the darker emotions, the fear of evil and

the pangs of loss, or the melancholy of weariness and futility. This

long, dark lake is never merely drab, even as you stand watching her

by the outlet on a gloomy cold day, no more than she is ever merely

pretty at her best. Now she is forbidding, impatient of frivolity,

demanding strength and endurance from her admirers. The strange,

unfailing line of foam, lying a few yards out from the right shore,

emphasises the blackness of the waters as it runs unbroken the whole

mile length of the lake. The waves clipclop unrhythmically under the

rocky edging, not like the sea waves regularly spaced; these are

irritable waves, fast-stuttering with anger. Though on a quiet sunny

125

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IRISH MONTHLY

day this samp irregularity gives an innocent effect of irresponsibility ?a happy childish chatter.

St. Kevin knew what he wanted. Here was the very place to drink

in the calming beauty of the all-pervading Presence; here was the

place to feel his own insignificance, perched like a sand-martin in

front of his rocky dug-out in the 600-foot cliff face; here it was easy to fear the Divine wrath as black squalls swept down the valley; this

was the place to vanquish the "

Spirits of evil in high places ", and

soar, like the peregrine, on the winds of the Spirit "that bloweth

whithersoever it wills ". He sought only God; when he had found

Him, as always happens, other men began to find him. He wanted

to disappear forever into the solitude of the soul?and a city grew

up around him. But Glendalough proved capable of containing a

university city, and remaining a solitude. There was no means by which a multitude could settle on the sheer face of the southern shore.

Kevin could always retire there to his eyrie, for peace and prayer. Far up the valley there is an unchristian land, never sanctified by

the monastic chant. Past the white strand at the far end of the lake

you come to a desolate waste, blighted and unproductive, a place where massive granite boulders have been hurled about in fury, where no trees grow and no man lives. The lead miners' ruined cottages add now to the desolation. This is the kind of place where the evicted

spirits might wander lonely, awaiting jealously their return to the

dwellings, swept and garnished, from which they were driven long ago. In front and at your side the great white gravel dumps beard

the arched mouths of the mine shafts and trail down the rough male

chest of the mountains; within the fascinating and mysterious depths of these tunnels strange noises sound, murmurings and the drip of

slimy waters. Even here St. Kevin must be master. Is not this all

his valley? Still, let us hurry back along the lake to the round tower, where even the graveyard looks more reassuring; there the dead are

crowded, confident of his protection. What is the use of having a patron of the diocese if the vast majority

of the "patronised" know nothing of his spirit? There is so little to be learned about Kevin from the books that it is impossible, I

think, to be inspired by him unless you visit and listen to the message of the valley that helped to sanctify him and was forever made holy

by his presence. St. Kevin is Glendalough and Glendalough is almost

all we know of Kevin now?and it is enough. 126

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