Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness

Diving into darkness

CULTURAL STUDIES: Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness By Tim Robinson Penguin Ireland, 373pp. €25

IN THE FINAL paragraph of the final chapter of his 200l essay collection My Time in Space , in which he moves from the smallest of observable phenomena - the "less than a speck" of Planck's Constant - to the infinite number of possible universes hypothesised by some cosmologists, Tim Robinson remarks that: "This heartshaking vision of the grounds of our possibility in a perhaps eternal and infinite profusion of universes is strangely like that of the foam of being we glimpse at the other end of the length-scale. We are not desolate creatures helplessly adrift between two deathly abysses. The perspectives I have sketched span the perilous sea of our universe from shore to shore. They are two wings of not-quite-inconceivable breadth and power, that bear us up for a time. Not for long enough, but for a time."

The essay from which these words are taken is entitled "The Fineness of Things", and for some 20-odd years now we have trusted this writer to alert us to, and to celebrate, the fineness - in every sense of the word - of the things that surround us, and of our own imaginings. Now, in the second volume of a trilogy that began with the widely and deservedly praised Listening to the Wind , Robinson continues his exploration both of Connemara and of the wider questions of our place in space and time, moving out from his home ground of Roundstone to the wilder and sometimes sinister terrain to the north, around the bays of Killary and Mannin and the islands beyond. This was where Wittgenstein came, towards the end of his life, in search of a place where he could work unhindered by the noise and flummery of the world - and it is this troubled, unusually restless philosopher whom Robinson invokes at the beginning of his own quest: "'I can only think clearly in the dark,' he said, 'and in Connemara I have found one of the last pools of darkness in Europe'. His thought, a mental ascesis that matched his frugal and solitary existence there, was directed to an end, or rather to its own end. As he had written 'The real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to. The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question'."

Threre's more of the Irish Times review here

Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness, by Tim Robinson

One particularly brilliant chapter concerns the artist, Dorothy Cross who swims most days in a cove and sea-cave below her house [near Mullaghglass]; she sometimes takes a can of sardines down into the depths of Killary Harbour to feed conger eels, black monsters as long as herself that come wavering out of holes.

Cross is one among many divers into darkness -- metaphorical and actual -- about whom Robinson writes. For this is unmistakably a bleak book, that considers the many black aspects of Connemara's past: poverty, famine, violent death, exile and emigration, sectarian conflict. Robinson also reflects sadly on Connemara's present economic and ecological problems: how, after 'the unimaginable climb out of the common grave of the Famine', the region has failed to renew its old ways of life, its language and skills, so that the young need not leave for the cities and the attempts to employ them here would not disfigure the countryside.

But Robinson is also alert to the dreams, mirth and optimism that Connemara has inspired: flashes against the gloom. His sense of the region is probably closest to that of Oliver St John Gogarty, who wrote of the fairy land of Connemara, at the extreme end of Europe, [where] incongruities flow together at last...[where] the sweet and the bitter are blended.

Robinson describes himself as an 'obsessive topographer'. His 36-year obsession, expressed as books and maps, has transformed the way the mid-west of Ireland is imagined, studied and encountered. Save for Iain Sinclair's writing on London and its fringes, I can think of no comparable literary work that engages with a landscape on such a scale, at such density and with such intelligence. The Aran books are now firmly acknowledged as classics (I've just written an introduction to Pilgrimage, for its reissue by the superb New York Review of Books Classics series), and I have little doubt that the Connemara trilogy will attract similar renown.

Synopsis

The first volume of Tim Robinson's Connemara trilogy, "Listening to the Wind", covered Robinson's home territory of Roundstone and environs. "The Last Pool of Darkness" moves into wilder territory: the fjords, cliffs, hills and islands of north-west Connemara, a place that Wittgenstein, who lived on his own in a cottage there for a time, called 'the last pool of darkness in Europe'. Again, combining his polymathic knowledge of Connemara's natural history, human history, folklore and topography with his own unsurpassable artistry as a writer, Tim Robinson has produced another classic.

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

'Praise for Listening to the Wind:'Exceptional ... A book about one place that is also about the whole world' Robert Macfarlane, Guardian'Dazzling ... an indubitable classic' Giles Foden, Conde Nast Traveller'One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists' Joseph O'Connor, Guardian'Robinson is a stylist of exceptional cadence, tact and ingenuity ... Reads like a light shone on his adopted home's distant past, and on the whole planet's future' Daily Telegraph'

Connemara: Listening to the Wind - Tim Robinson

In 1367, the statutes of Kilkenny were enacted in order to prevent the English from becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves. At the time, the statutes were unsuccessful and, should the politics of today allow their current enforcement, they would certainly fail in the case of Tim Robinson.

Born in England in 1935, Tim Robinson studied Map Making in Cambridge University, taught in various places in England and Europe before moving to Ireland in 1972. The rest, as they say, is history, a history from which the West of Ireland has hugely benefited. First appeared the first modern detailed maps of the Burren, the Aran Islands and Connemara and the two great classics of Inismór topography: "Stories of Aran: Pilgrimage" and "Stories of Aran: Labyrinth". Along with them, there was a plethora of pamphlets and books relating to Landscape, Metaphysics, Mathematics and Aesthetics, and now, he has just published the first of three proposed books on the topography, natural history and lore of Connemara. The first volume is entitled "Listening to the Wind".

Opening the pages of this book is as close as most humans will get to opening a treasure chest full of rare jewels. The shear breadth of the beauty within will result in gasps of awe and wonder. There will be a hesitancy to touch it in case it is all an illusion, the magic will disappear and we will be left, once again, bereft. This treasure chest is, thankfully, no illusion and every jewel proves to be deeper and richer than anticipated. Every aspect of the book is a joy to experience and admire.

To begin with, there is the writing itself. In an age when grammar and syntax is no longer taught in our schools or respected by our so-called mentors, when written communication is being diminished to syllables, or even single letter symbols, it is refreshing to read full and complete sentences, almost sculpture-like in their artistry, Add to this a wide ranging and precise use of vocabulary and the reader is faced with a full panorama of the English language in all its glory.

Then, there is the love of the Connemara landscape. From the first page, Robinson is at one with the countryside that surrounds him. Whether he be up the mountain or in a valley, beside a stream or lake, walking through a field or negotiating the intricacies of a pathway through a bog, his empathy, respect and understanding - not to mention knowledge - is such that the reader is made to feel warmly welcome and comfortable.

The book is not just about the landscape itself. Robinson also fills its pages with the people who have lived in its most isolated parts. In the text, these men and women emerge almost ghostlike from the rocks and stones. In telling their story, the author manifests a deep sense of humanity as well as a wry sense of humour. Every twist and turn of the road has its story - often reflected in a place name - and Robinson slips it in quietly before the people re-emerge with the landscape and the book continues on its seamless journey.

The book is imbued with a sense of inherent generosity. But with the generosity there is also a note of caution that if we remain senseless to the dangers of uncontrolled progress, the treasure chest that is being shared with us will dissipate and disappear, and we will be left bereft.

Our own responsibility as managers of our own environment as well as its conservators is underlined as in the following passage:

"Another old and weighty word from O'Flaherty to conclude. Describing the outflow of the Ablainn Mhór at Tuaim Beola, he says the river is 'exonerated' into the bay. To 'exonerate' to relieve of a burden, physical or moral. A river's ills may be discharged into the sea, but, the way things are, we keepers of the world - catchment cannot be exonerated of our responsibility".

That "Connemara Listening to the Wind" is an unmitigated joy to read goes without saying. History will determine whether or not it will become a classic - although the odds are stacked heavily in its favour. Whether we live up to its standards and exert our responsibilities as managers and conservators of our environment, that, oddly, remains very much to be seen.

For any further information on Connemara Listening to the Wind by Tim Robinson please contact tkenny@kennys.ie