Sweaney Peregraine

Paul Muldoon

  • Station Island by Seamus Heaney
    Faber, 123 pp, £5.95, October 1984, ISBN 0 571 13301 0
  • Sweeney Astray: A Version by Seamus Heaney
    Faber, 85 pp, £6.95, October 1984, ISBN 0 571 13360 6
  • Rich by Craig Raine
    Faber, 109 pp, £5.95, September 1984, ISBN 0 571 13215 4

The title-sequence of Seamus Heaney’s sixth collection finds him on Station Island, Lough Derg, more commonly known as St Patrick’s Purgatory. It’s the setting for a pilgrimage undertaken by thousands of Irish men and women each year. For three days they fast and pray, deprive themselves of sleep, and walk barefoot round the station ‘beds’ – circles of rough stones said to be the remains of monastic huts. A place, then, strongly associated in the Irish mind with self-denial, contemplation, spiritual renewal; a place, too, that has attracted writers like Sean O’Faolain, Denis Devlin, William Carleton and Patrick Kavanagh; a place where the individual might decently ruminate on his relationship with society.

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