EXTRACT
KILCLIEF & OTHER ESSAYS Below is an extract from Kilclief & Other Essays, by Co. Antrim author Patricia Craig, published by Irish Pages.
It dawned on us gradually (and especially, on me) that the restoration of Isle O’Valla House would be an unworkable undertaking. We hadn’t the resources, of time or money. But the house continued for some time to draw us towards it like addicts to an opium den. Whenever I stayed at Kilclief I’d invite friends down from Belfast and introduce them to the drear delights of Isle O’ Valla House. The wonderful American photographer Rachel Brown (Rachel Giese), who was then based in Ireland, came with me to Isle O’Valla and captured on film its stark fascination. She set her camera on a tripod and photographed the two of us, incongruous intruders, larking before the grey facade, the cracked and broken window-panes, the ominous interior looming beyond the half-open door. Like the entrance to burnt Danielstown, in Elizabeth Bowen’s novel The Last September, the door at that point “stood open hospitably” -- not upon a furnace, indeed, but upon an ultimate darkness and desolation. Derek Mahon, Paul Muldoon, Douglas and Marie Carson, some old friends from school and art school, all arrived at Kilclief at one time or another, and had the enigmatic hidden house pointed out to them as a local feature. The poet Michael Longley came more than once, and on one occasion he brought with him his friend Michael Allen who was then a lecturer in the English Department of Queen’s University. The three of us, unlikely delinquents, broke into Isle O’Valla House and proceeded gingerly to the top floor, where we entered a room and encountered a sight that made our “flesh to creep the day an’ [our] hair to stan’ on end” (to quote a line from the opening verse of Mrs Alexander’s grisly
ballad “Stumpie’s Brae”). In a corner of the otherwise empty room was a table on which reposed a candle in a candlestick. A rickety chair was drawn up to the table, and leaning against the chair was a single crutch. We were brought up short by the eerie tableau. To the aura of emptiness and neglect was added a qualm of the unearthly. Nobody spoke. An impulse came over me to beat a hasty retreat, but I didn’t altogether give in to it - just backed away slightly, thankful that I wasn’t alone. I don’t know what direful presence I thought I was sensing in the vacant upper room. The ghost of a cripple? A Famine victim? Had we stumbled into an offshoot of Nightmare Abbey? A flesh-and-blood tramp was a rather more likely candidate for the role of trespasser. I’m sure it was a tramp. But a question arises: why would a disabled vagrant stomp all the way up to the second floor? And why, unless he needed to leave in a hurry, would he then abandon his crutch? Did some unspeakable alarm occur in the dead of night, causing him to flee for his life? Safe and snug in my bed at 119 Shore Road, I would sometimes waken in the small hours and think of near-by Isle O’Valla, a candle burning, an occupied chair, wafts of dust and decay, and some supernatural element added to chill the blood. About Kilclief & Other Essays This long-awaited selection of essays and reviews from one of Ireland’s leading critics brings together a wealth of reflection, observation and astute literary comment. It ranges in time from William Carleton to Edna O’Brien, and in subject matter from recent Irish poetry to ghosts, children’s books and MI5. Patricia Craig has some important points to make, and makes them with cogency and wit. Always readable and entertaining (and sometimes controversial), she is possibly the only female non-academic Northern Irish critic who has consistently, and over a long period, contributed to every leading UK and Irish publication (and a couple in the US). The book begins with the unpublished and partly autobiographical “Kilclief”, which deals mainly with the literary associations – unexpectedly extensive – of a small but distinctive area of Co Down. Next comes a section on books relating to Ireland, “Red Hands and Dancing Feet”. Here you will find insightful essays on some of the great names in Irish literature (Synge, James Stephens, Brendan Behan), alongside 203
others featuring more recent authors (Elizabeth Bowen, William Trevor, Ciaran Carson). Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s exhilarating Cré na Cille is discussed, and another long piece concerns the music-and-song collector Seamus Ennis. Part Two, “Pious Girls and Swearing Fathers”, presents views and reviews of books connected (loosely) to women and children, and contains lively pieces on Muriel Spark, Iris Murdoch, Harry Potter and so on. And the third section, “Fiddlesticks!”, rounds up some stray, but superlative, miscellaneous articles on subjects as diverse as the enigmatic MI5 officer Maxwell Knight and Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks. Kilclief & Other Essays is an altogether memorable collection. About the Author Patricia Craig was born and grew up in Belfast. She spent many years in London, and returned to live in Northern Ireland in 1999. A highly distinguished critic, reviewer and essayist, she is the author of two biographies, three memoirs, and (with Mary Cadogan) three critical studies. She has edited many anthologies, including The Oxford Book of Ireland, The Belfast Anthology and The Ulster Anthology. Volume Three of her memoir, Asking for Trouble, is forthcoming.
Kilclief & Other Essays, by Patricia Craig, published by Irish Pages.
