In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

361 PATRICK O’KELLY (c.1746–1808–1837) Pat O’Kelly, who was born in Loughrea Co. Galway, made a living for himself as a travelling bard, writing verses in praise of (or, if he had been badly treated, in dispraise of) the owners of the various Irish country houses where he begged hospitality. He was well known throughout the west of Ireland – his admirers called him ‘blest Laureate of our Isle’ and the ‘pride of Connacht’– and assembled impressive subscription lists for his books of eccentric and self-congratulatory (but in places interestingly ‘local’) verse; he is mainly remembered today for having persuaded the Prince of Wales to take fifty copies of Poems on the Giant’s Causeway and Killarney (1808) and for having written the famous ‘Doneraile Litany’. Like Killarney and the Powerscourt waterfall, the Giant’s Causeway attracted the attention of many eighteenth-century poets. from: Description of the Giant’s Causeway HAIL! Architect divine! who giv’st mine eye To view those scenes, which human art defy: Rocks ’thron’d on rocks, stupendous work display, Where awful horrors hold eternal sway; Where all the group so magically new, So deep, so wild, and wonderful to view; Where dreary caverns deep, impress dismay, And interdictions lour1 on Phoebus’ ray ; Where countless prodigies thy skill declare, Whose models Artists to their countries bear;2 10 But vain their efforts, such bold scenes to draw, And vain is Art to model Nature’s law; Sooner shall Man from scientific lore, Number the pebbles on the sea-lash’d shore; Sooner be stars to calculation just, And graves restore an individual dust, Than thy great Causeway, Architect divine! In equal splendor by description shine. Tho’ the admir’d Colossus lives to fame, And Pompey’s Pillar full distinction claim3 20 i.e. even the rays of the sun look gloomy and forbidding. 1 The best-known representations of the Giant’s Causeway were those by Susanna Drury 2 whose 1739 paintings were engraved in 1743 by François Vivares and circulated, in this form, throughout Europe. The reference is to two of the wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes and 3 Pompey’s pillar, a Roman triumphal column in Alexandria. 362 To just renown, and strike Attention’s eye, Here nobler scenes in wild disorder lie. What height! what gloom! what magnitude! what form! How prompt each view to live in fame and charm! Pillars half scatter’d—angles—concave sides; In whose projection sportive Nature prides. The cliffs stupendous, wond’rous to behold, O’erlook the Main, majestically bold:4 Its awful heights above th’Atlantic rise, Burst through the clouds and intercept the skies: 30 Nature convuls’d this wond’rous work has done, Proud to compleat a grand phenomenon. Lo! to PORTRUSH5 this awful wreck extends, Where shade with shade, and pile with pile contends; Horror on horror variagates the scene, To intersperse th’unequal shade between. Prismatic columns on each side are here; In regular confusion all appear! To contemplate the whole, so wild, so vast; Wonders criterion is, by far, surpast: 40 Those stately pillars (long by time imbrown’d) In all that’s great and marvellous abound: In density and form these piles agree, Still unimpair’d and from disorder free: Such solid vestiges of liquid fire, The more we contemplate, the more admire; One universal standard stamps the whole, And with amazement fires th’enraptur’d soul. Reason’s bewilder’d, when this work we view, And leaves Mankind in doubt and darkness too; 50 Darkness and doubt, at once impress the heart, So clear th’anology twixt chance and art. … Pleaskin Head, a cliff of volcanic formation rising high above the Giant’s Causeway. 4 A seaside town to the west of the Giant’s Causeway. awful = inspiring admiration. 5 ...

Share