Poet Paul Durcan comes home to Mayo

As several weeks of sunshine ended on Friday last, and the coffin of poet Paul Durcan was carried out from St Mary’s Church in Westport into Navin’s funeral hearse headed for Aughavale Cemetery on the West Road, a man of words from Castlebar described the change in weather as a good omen.

“We’ve had dry weather for eight weeks but happy the day the rain falls upon the corpse," well-known raconteur Ernie Sweeney told the Western People, as he gathered with over one hundred or so others at the dedicated prayer service to pay homage to one of Ireland’s best-known poets whose Mayo roots are deep and strong on both sides of the family.

During a poignant prayer ceremony led by parish priest Fr John Kenny, assisted by Fr Tony King, the great and the good who turned up for the occasion all respectfully lowered their heads in memory of Paul Durcan following his death at the age of 80 on May 17 last.

Iar-Taoiseach Enda Kenny was there, with his wife Fionnuala, as was former Mayo county councillor and senator Frank Chambers and his wife Phil. John McHugh, manager of Westport Custom House, represented the arts sector and also acted as a pall-bearer once the eco-friendly woven wicker casket containing the remains of Paul Durcan were brought down the centre aisle towards the exit of St Mary’s Church.

The late poet’s Mayo cousins, retired District Court Judge and former senator, Westport man Patrick Durcan, former Mayo county councillor from Castlebar Frank Durcan, as well as Seamus and Mary MacBride-Walsh from Westport, were also present to mark the final church service of their loved one, while family members across three generations of the late poet sat united, dignified and composed before the plinth and next to the coffin.

Despite the rain, both feelings and temperatures ran warm, and within the cosy confines of church pews and the beautiful architecture that marks St Mary’s Church friendly greetings were exchanged and meaningful conversations had as a host of local personalities rolled back the years to mark the passing of yet one more Irish great, during a service punctuated by resonant music that included renditions of Eleanor Plunkett and Ag Críost an Síol.

Joining in the opportunity of communal reflection, Ernie Sweeney remarked: “I met him (Paul Durcan) one time in the library in Castlebar dressed all in black clothes and with his head down and then a second time when he was full of beans. I said to him, “I’ve a funny feeling you’re a man who cries for other men’s pain” and he responded by comparing me to an emperor who used similar words years ago – which made me flop down in my chair in shock at such a tribute, as I thought, isn’t it great that the utterings of a former illiterate like myself could be appreciated by such a poet.” 

No longer illiterate but an accredited writer himself, Ernie lauded the late Mr Durcan for writing poetry “that has a flow to it”. 

“The more you read it the more you understand it. There is a rhyme to it and thanks to the teachings of Brother Augustus that is how I learned to read.” 

Mayo people can readily relate to the poems also, he asserted, as so many of them carry local themes. 

“He wrote a poem about the Castlebar Hat Factory, titled 'Hats, Hats, Hats', describing a black head of hair looking out through a hole in the ditches (that was the hat factory) and another one about all the people walking along the Blackfort Road in Castlebar. He also stayed a lot with his aunt in Turlough and wrote a poem describing the sounds of nature and humanity as the village started to come alive at 5am each day. 

"He was just very observant of life and it meant a lot to me to be here for this service today with my wife Susannah."

Newport couple Frank and Phil Chambers also arrived to pay their respects, with Phil describing Mr Durcan as “the consummate poet” who visited his home county of Mayo “as often as possible”. Indeed, Mr Durcan was a regular visitor to the Chambers’ Blue Bicycle Tearooms during its heyday years and they also recalled a boat trip on Clew Bay spent with the wordsmith alongside local couple Joe and Anne McGovern, remembering him as a man of “great character and company” with a wonderful command of the English language. One particular visit by the poet to Newport coincided with the wedding day of a daughter of the Chambers’ and they later discovered mention of the event in a subsequent poem. 

“We’re very proud of him, as a poet, and as a Westport man," added Phil.

Retired Westport GP Ollie Whyte and his wife Tina also attended the service, with Dr Ollie remembering Mr Durcan as a poet who was “very loyal to Mayo”, who always had “very nice things to say about Mayo”, was “very observant” and “up there with the best". 

For this reporter, it was a pleasure to sit next to the ever-helpful CEO of Portwest, Harry Hughes, a lover of history and fine words, who kindly furnished the lines of the “Going Home to Mayo”, a poem written by Paul Durcan about visiting Mayo as a five-year-old in 1949. This work, which forms part of the rich repertoire of astute observational poems by the late poet, recounts a journey from Dublin to Mayo filled with excitement as he sat next to his father ticking off the towns of Kilcock, Kinnegad, Strokestown, Elphin, Tarmonbarry, Tulsk and Ballaghaderreen, before finally nearing the Plain of the Yew Tree.

Durcan writes:

Now we were in Mayo and the next stop was Turlough, 

The village of Turlough in the heartland of Mayo, 

And my father's mother's house, all oil-lamps and women, 

And my bedroom over the public bar below, 

And in the morning cattle-cries and cock-crows:

Life's seemingly seamless garment gorgeously rent 

By their screeches and bellowings. 

And in the evenings I walked with my father 

On the high grass down by the river 

Talking with him - an unheard-of thing in the city.

Describing the work as a “classic”, Harry Hughes said it captured the happiness of the young poet on a journey home to his beloved Mayo – and the despair he felt on the return to Dublin. Recalling an occasion when he had “the good fortune to meet the late poet”, the Portwest CEO added that it was a great honour for Westport that Paul Durcan had “chosen to be buried here”.

Another poem, Our Lady of Westport, which was read from the pulpit by Fr John Kenny, includes the lines:

Mary the Mother of Jesus

The most elegant woman in Westport.

Behold her striding around the foothills of the Reek, 

Aughagower, Old Head, Boheh, Drummin, Murrisk 

A sight for sore eyes.

In her bottle-green cowled habit, her white scarf, 

Her bare feet, 

She hangs out on the corner of the Mall 

With her little man in the palm of her hand, 

As ebullient a wee covey in his coral-pink judo-strip 

As ever kicked a ball for the County of Mayo.

This was followed by the recitation of a third work of the late poet by Fr Tony King, The 12 O’Clock Mass at Roundstone, that goes loud on GAA hurling themes – and which, as with Fr Kenny’s recitation, won an enthusiastic round of applause from the congregation.

More than half a dozen grandchildren of the late poet then took turns reading a selection of prayers into the service, where mention was made of the poet’s Westport mum Sheila MacBride Durcan, who was a niece of Irish nationalist Major John MacBride, as well as his father, James Durcan from Turlough in Castlebar.

In the prayers, the congregation was also invited to remember the value of the arts to society, to pray for a “just end to the war in Ukraine” and to think of “the quiet moments” and of the man “who was a poet in motion”, who is now gone but whose voice remains “a whisper in the wind, a shadow in the sun”.

With the coffin ready to leave the church on its last journey home to a graveyard outside Westport, Fr John Kenny concluded: “We mourn the loss of Paul Durcan, a luminous voice in Irish poetry whose work captured Ireland’s deepest roots. May his legacy inspire generations to come.”