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The gems she wore: A book of Irish places
Great literature on travel
- GenresTravel
208 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 1985
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
James Plunkett
25 books19 followersJames Plunkett Kelly, or James Plunkett (21 May 1920 – 28 May 2003), was an Irish writer. He was educated at Synge Street CBS.
Plunkett grew up among the Dublin working class and they, along with the petty bourgeoisie and lower intelligentsia, make up the bulk of the dramatis personae of his oeuvre. His best-known works are the novel Strumpet City, set in Dublin in the years leading up to the lockout of 1913 and during the course of the strike, and the short stories in the collection The Trusting and the Maimed. His other works include a radio play on James Larkin, who figures prominently in his work.
During the 1960s, Plunkett worked as a producer at Telefís Éireann. He won two Jacob's Awards, in 1965 and 1969, for his TV productions. In 1971 he wrote and presented "Inis Fail - Isle of Destiny", his very personal appreciation of Ireland. It was the final episode of the BBC series "Bird's-Eye View", shot entirely from a helicopter, and the first co-production between the BBC and RTE.
James Plunkett is one of the forgotten men of Irish literature. Most of our writers seem to loom larger than their work (Behan, whom I wrote about last week, is the classic example). But Plunkett's name is less remembered than either his landmark play, The Risen People, or his novel and television series, Strumpet City.
Plunkett grew up among the Dublin working class and they, along with the petty bourgeoisie and lower intelligentsia, make up the bulk of the dramatis personae of his oeuvre. His best-known works are the novel Strumpet City, set in Dublin in the years leading up to the lockout of 1913 and during the course of the strike, and the short stories in the collection The Trusting and the Maimed. His other works include a radio play on James Larkin, who figures prominently in his work.
During the 1960s, Plunkett worked as a producer at Telefís Éireann. He won two Jacob's Awards, in 1965 and 1969, for his TV productions. In 1971 he wrote and presented "Inis Fail - Isle of Destiny", his very personal appreciation of Ireland. It was the final episode of the BBC series "Bird's-Eye View", shot entirely from a helicopter, and the first co-production between the BBC and RTE.
James Plunkett is one of the forgotten men of Irish literature. Most of our writers seem to loom larger than their work (Behan, whom I wrote about last week, is the classic example). But Plunkett's name is less remembered than either his landmark play, The Risen People, or his novel and television series, Strumpet City.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 8, 2012
This is an absolutely wonderful book which doesn't seem to appear on the Goodreads radar -- it has an average reader's rating of 0.00 -- so something has to be done about that! It's a travel book of sorts but with a delightful digressive and anecdotal quality. Plunkett himself says: "What follows has been made ... by bringing together what was first gathered through travel in the company of those who were infinitely better informed or by reading what they had written; through more modest personal research undertaken as a background to radio and television programmes about Ireland over a number of years, or simply through everyday encounters and conversations."
Plunkett wanders about Ireland and tells us about the things he sees, the people he meets, and above all what it means. This is no dumb tourist but a man steeped in the history and culture of the country who seems to possess an effortless conversational style of writing that drives me insane with jealousy. Here is but one example:
The stump of Dunboy Castle still stands at the water's edge outside the town of Castletownbere, surrounded by a small wood in which herons nest. Beside it, in 1920, a Welsh-born landowner built an enormous mansion, Puxley Hall, which is in ruins also.
When I asked about it locally at first I could get no information, until perseverance forced one man to talk.
'It got burned", he said. I knew he was being evasive and I also knew why. He thought I was British because I was with a BBC crew and felt the truth might be unnecessarily insulting to my country - after all, we were guests.
"Who burned it?' I asked.
'Damn the bit of me knows', he said.
'Was it the boys?' I asked.
He was basically an honest man.
After a struggle he gave in.
'Now that you mention it', he said, as though the recollection had just come to him, 'I believe it was'."
So Dunboy Castle and Puxley Hall stand in ruins together, the one razed to the ground by the army of Elizabeth, the other burned out by Irish rebels. Three hundred years and more separate them in time and yet they are very close to one another; not merely contiguous, but close in the sense Louis MacNeice meant when he wrote:
. . . as close
As the peasantry were to the landlord,
As the Irish to the Anglo-Irish,
As the killer is close one moment
To the man he kills,
Or as the moment itself
Is close to the next moment.
This kind of writing just doesn't come along every minute (you would think) but it is remarkably sustained throughout this medium-sized work -- 169 pages in the 1972 paperback edition I have clung on to over the years: ISBN 0 09 939990 3.
There is nothing phony or contrived about this book. This is the real thing. Trust me. I was born and grew up in Ireland and I learned more from this book than all those years of history classes at school.
A final word about the title:
Rich and rare were the gems she wore*
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore
But, oh! her beauty was far beyond
Her sparkling gems and snow-white wand
-- THOMAS MOORE (Melodies)
* 'A young lady of great beauty, adorned with jewels and a costly dress, undertook a journey alone, from one end of the kingdom to the other, with a wand only in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value; and such an impression had the laws and government of this monarch made on the minds of all the people (Brian Boru, who was to die at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 when Irish forces drove off the Vikings) that no attempt was made upon her honour, nor was she robbed of her clothes and jewels.'
-- Warner's History of Ireland Vol I, Book 10
Plunkett wanders about Ireland and tells us about the things he sees, the people he meets, and above all what it means. This is no dumb tourist but a man steeped in the history and culture of the country who seems to possess an effortless conversational style of writing that drives me insane with jealousy. Here is but one example:
The stump of Dunboy Castle still stands at the water's edge outside the town of Castletownbere, surrounded by a small wood in which herons nest. Beside it, in 1920, a Welsh-born landowner built an enormous mansion, Puxley Hall, which is in ruins also.
When I asked about it locally at first I could get no information, until perseverance forced one man to talk.
'It got burned", he said. I knew he was being evasive and I also knew why. He thought I was British because I was with a BBC crew and felt the truth might be unnecessarily insulting to my country - after all, we were guests.
"Who burned it?' I asked.
'Damn the bit of me knows', he said.
'Was it the boys?' I asked.
He was basically an honest man.
After a struggle he gave in.
'Now that you mention it', he said, as though the recollection had just come to him, 'I believe it was'."
So Dunboy Castle and Puxley Hall stand in ruins together, the one razed to the ground by the army of Elizabeth, the other burned out by Irish rebels. Three hundred years and more separate them in time and yet they are very close to one another; not merely contiguous, but close in the sense Louis MacNeice meant when he wrote:
. . . as close
As the peasantry were to the landlord,
As the Irish to the Anglo-Irish,
As the killer is close one moment
To the man he kills,
Or as the moment itself
Is close to the next moment.
This kind of writing just doesn't come along every minute (you would think) but it is remarkably sustained throughout this medium-sized work -- 169 pages in the 1972 paperback edition I have clung on to over the years: ISBN 0 09 939990 3.
There is nothing phony or contrived about this book. This is the real thing. Trust me. I was born and grew up in Ireland and I learned more from this book than all those years of history classes at school.
A final word about the title:
Rich and rare were the gems she wore*
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore
But, oh! her beauty was far beyond
Her sparkling gems and snow-white wand
-- THOMAS MOORE (Melodies)
* 'A young lady of great beauty, adorned with jewels and a costly dress, undertook a journey alone, from one end of the kingdom to the other, with a wand only in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value; and such an impression had the laws and government of this monarch made on the minds of all the people (Brian Boru, who was to die at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 when Irish forces drove off the Vikings) that no attempt was made upon her honour, nor was she robbed of her clothes and jewels.'
-- Warner's History of Ireland Vol I, Book 10
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