A MONTH ago Susan Plunkett introduced us to her 90-year-old father’s poem called Life’s a Beach, which was much appreciated by a number of readers.
Signing himself as the Bard of Ballyholme, Susan explained that “life has changed dramatically for Dad over the last year and this is the first piece he has written for a number of years.”
The final verse, in the style of William Marshall’s classic Drumlister epic, ended with the words “I’m into me last furlong and me legs be’s getting sore, when I’m sitting by the greesha and can barely make the door. The only thing that keeps me now is bowls of stir-about. And that’s as good as anything until I’m counted out.” Some kindly readers translated greesha for us, and more versions of the curious colloquialism are still coming in. “The use of the word greesha would appear to be a variation of the Scottish word ‘Greeshoch’ or ‘Grieshoch’ meaning hot embers, probably on a peat fire in the hearth,” said Ned Mooney, who added “Cheers Roamer, and keep stirring the pot!” Joan Strawbridge from Coleraine discovered a translation in an old Ulster dictionary. “It means a big roaring fire,” she explained. A letter from Davy, bereft of his surname or address, offered another eloquent translation, and much more besides.
“I was pleased to read the Bard of Ballyholme and his latest piece called Life’s a Beach,” wrote Davy, who referred to the Bard as “one of these naturally inspired people.” Davy, an enthusiastic fan of William Marshall, hopes that Susan Plunkett’s father will write more poems, and added “One verse of another piece comes to mind, but it is the only verse of the poem that I’ve ever heard.” The few lines that he sent me were evidently penned by a home-sick Ulster-man in Germany.
“I have roamed the highways, and all the byways, and all the harbours along the Rhine. But in all my rakings, and undertakings, Ardboe, your equal I shall never find.” Roamer has never before encountered the sleepy little village of Ardboe on Lough Neagh being compared with Europe’s vast industrial metropolis along the Rhine! Perhaps someone might send me the complete poem. “However, my reason for writing to you,” continued Davy, “is to tell you the meaning of the word greesha, which was told to me by my father 70 or more years ago.” Roamer has never before encountered such an eloquent, evocative and descriptive translation, except perhaps in Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago! This is it, in Davy’s own words that have withstood seven decades of weathering, but still retain all of their intense warmth and vividness. “Greesha means the embers of a dying hearth fire, growing dull, but still burning at bedtime, into the night, brushed up tidy, with seaweed behind a half-iron hoop taken from an old wheel that belonged to a horse’s or donkey’s cart.” If today’s dictionaries contained definitions like Davy’s we wouldn’t need to bother with books! His final greeting was similarly moving. “Yours faithfully and thankfully, from an aged reader who still enjoys the old-time dialects of those inspired folk.” Methinks Davy is one of them!