Gallarus oratory seamus heaney biography
Gallarus Oratory has been, for generations, called “Ireland's oldest surviving church,” or even one of the “oldest intact buildings in Ireland.”....
Heaney at Gallarus
A long time ago I read Seamus Heaney’s poem
About Gallarus Oratory, then I thought I’d find
My way there when I was living at Dingle.
The “core of dark” which Heaney had spoken of,
Lying within its windowless pile of stones,
Somehow held the promise of illumination.
After a windswept, cliff-edged graveyard
(Which Brendan Behan had once joked
Was “the healthiest graveyard in Ireland”),
There rose a diminutive chapel with room
For few to do much in the way of orating.
This was Séipéilín Ghallarais,
‘The Church of the Place of the Foreigners’.
A tiny smudge on the horizon at Ard na Caithne,
Swelling up from the turf to a sharp point.
I entered, and I felt this black glow.
A few holy snatches came to mind.
I found myself testing the air with them,
For there was no one for miles around.
The stones’ structure held an empowering space.
A fruitful limbo that hovered between
