County Galway

1987 - An abandoned dwelling near Clonbur, high on a hill overlooking Lough Corrib.

 
H.V. Morton dedicated his book In Search of Ireland, first published in December 1930, ‘to the raking of the fire and the new flame in the morning.’

On entering Joyce's Country, he wrote, 'there is a verse spoken by peasants in the west as they rake the embers of their turf fires before going to bed. It has been Englished as follows:-

I save the seed of the fire tonight,
And so may Christ save me:
On the top of the house let Mary,
In the middle let Brighid be.

Let eight of the mightiest angels
Round the throne of the Trinity,
Protect this house and its people
Till the dawn of the day shall be.

One night at the end of a long evening spent in a Connemara cabin, I watched the farmer rake his fire. He tidied the little pile of glowing turf, and then he damped it down with ashes in order that the fire might live until morning.

This act, which is performed in thousands of white cabins when night comes over the hills is symbolic of Ireland. The burning peat, one may fancy, is the Gael: the ashes are the centuries of suppression under a foreign power: the darkness needs no comment, and the morning is the Ireland of the future. When these ashes are raked off in the morning there is a pinkish heart of fire in the turf, and the peasants blow upon it until a flame bursts out and new fuel is added on the hearth.'