Writing Connaught Street

Poet Jackie Gorman writes about her current project, a sequence of poems about Athlone's Connaught Street, and the challenge of bringing historical research to the page.

For my next poetry collection, I am currently researching Connaught Street in Athlone, as I am writing a sequence of poems about the street. The poems will span the area from before the street existed to the present day.

Prior to the street as we currently know it, there were a few botháns [cabins] and certainly there was a lot of wildlife and nature, given the street’s proximity to the River Shannon.

The Irish language was spoken and as far as we can tell it would have sounded similar to the Irish spoken in Galway and Mayo.

There is a reference in “The Flood” by John Broderick to an old woman singing in Irish on one of the lanes off Connacht Street. A lot of Broderick’s work reflected his real experience of life in Athlone. The book is set in the 1930s and maybe there was an elderly Irish-speaker near the street at that time. Perhaps someone who grew up in South Roscommon, where the language was a little stronger.

The earliest mention of the street is on deeds in 1715, so it was in existence for some time before then. It’s a different street today but it’s interesting to think of the skills people had on the street at that time. Skills such as weaving, which people pay money to learn now as a way to get away from our tech-driven work and lives.

These people come to life in my mind and on the page, I try to bring them alive again imagining what they might try to tell us.

"I could thatch a roof, mend shoes, make baskets, cut turf and make poitín.

"I could make a boat and a coffin. I had the knack of the churn and could read the signs at night when I’d meet the shape-shifting bright-eyed hare on the grassy road.

"I could tell many stories and sing all the old songs."

History is always interesting but what really fascinates me as I try to craft poems about Connaught Street are the people and the small details that make a life.

I don’t have the gimlet eye of a detective but rather the eye of a magpie which is attracted to the unusual and sparkling details which emerge from research. I’ve discovered fallen soldiers from World War 1, revolutionaries, poitín makers, writers, tailors and a profound love of place.

There’s Private Thomas Monahan of the Connaught Rangers, who died in 1915 after serving in India and South Africa. He died in World War 1 and is buried in the British Graveyard of Souchez in northern France.

There were at least two other soldiers from Connaught Street who were wounded during the war, Private Thomas Locke who served with the Royal Field Artillery, and Private Patrick Sweeney who served with the Leinster Regiment.

A few doors from the family home that Private Monahan left behind was Fitzgerald’s pub where Eva, the daughter of the family, charmed British soldiers. She was hiding in plain sight, carrying bomb parts, assassination plans and secrets she heard in the pub to the IRA.

She played a strong role locally in the War of Independence. History happens on every street and in every house. One young man leaves home to fight in World War 1, a young woman joins Cumman na mBan and history is made.

Writing about a place really does get into your head and that’s a good thing. I spend a lot of time reading and have become fixated on the trivia of what things smelled like or felt like. What did the coins in the 1700s feel like? How do you melt pewter on a kitchen fire? What was it like to have so many people living in a small house? What was it like to make butter in a churn?

You become steeped in different times, thinking about the hopes these people had, this creates the right atmosphere to write.

A writer’s imagination can sometimes bring the past to life for us in a more intimate way than academic or bluntly factual descriptions can. We live through stories and language. We cannot only look at the street as it once was but breathe in the smell of a fish stall, pipe tobacco, fragrant loose tea or poitín. The latter drink kept the heavily armed Revenue Police Barracks on Connaught Street busy, detecting illegal liquor stills and capturing their operators who were attempting to avoid the payment of excise duty.

We can feel the weight and surfaces of different materials and appreciate how some things we now take for granted were precious, like a good heavy winter coat, the intricate twill so pleasing to the eye.

Historical records are often packed with information and sometimes research can provide an embarrassing abundance of riches, it can be difficult to decide what to leave out.

Those who write fiction have an advantage; a novel can include trivia in an incidental way and a poem can’t. Compression is the lifeline of a poem; everything can be symbolic. So, if you include the beautiful plate from 18th century Ireland you saw at a museum, the reader will attach a meaning to this, and it may be a distraction from what you are trying to say.

It means being certain about what goes in and what is totally necessary, it means being ruthless at times. I’ve come to realise over the past few months that the best historical poems carry their research very lightly. I think of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “Warming Her Pearls”, the mistress’ shoulders are brushed with a rabbit’s foot.

It’s a subtle pointer to the time we are in and also evokes the light movement of rabbit’s feet and this light movement is the same as the voice in the poem. It’s a very deft piece of work, a lodestar for any of us who want to write poetry about the past.

History unfolds street by street, life by life, by every decision we make, and I hope to bring some of these people alive again through poetry. When we look at Connaught Street today, it can be hard at times to believe this was once a thriving and vibrant street and it is important to know and believe that it can be again. It has a rich past and this should be celebrated as much as possible, with a keen eye on the future.

John Broderick, the writer whose family owned a well-known business on Connaught Street, produced work which inspired and challenged readers. His work was deeply informed by Athlone and the community in which he lived. All of us who write should be inspired by the strong sense of place his work demonstrated as we seek to create new reflections of where we are today.

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.