On Raglan Road…
“On Raglan Road of an Autumn day I saw her and I knew….” so goes the poem by Patrick Kavanagh and the lyrics of The Dubliner’s most famous song. I live in Baggotonia or Pembroke-shire as Patrick Kavanagh liked to call it.
A walk down Raglan Road or “…the enchanted way…” and its neighbouring avenues of Waterloo, Wellington, Clyde and Elgin, at this time of year is a joy. Its easy to see how Patrick Kavanagh was inspired by such a beautiful location- with the stately homes sitting like Grand Dames high and distant from the road, confident and aware of their majesty. The houses have high granite steps, entwined with glossy black wrought iron-work and on a dark autumn day are lit up by fanlights. The street is framed by beautiful old trees- in autumn- the leaves paint splendid colour along the street. The moment you turn the corner from Pembroke Road and read the white and blue street-sign Raglan Road, Luke Kelly’s powerful voice evokes the atmosphere of the street in your mind and the beautiful melancholy of Kavanagh’s poem.
On a walk today I found that the lines of this poem are so well known to me and the picture is so evocatively drawn its easy to imagine Patrick on just such a walk back in the early 1940s, taking in the glory of street and the moment he “.. saw her and I knew…“. The glimpse in the poem of a woman walking Raglan Road, leads to a fascinating question: who was the woman who “wove a snare with her long dark hair” on poor Patrick Kavanagh?
The answer to this is interesting, she was a woman called Dr. Hilda Moriarty. A 22 year old medical student in the early 1940s when Kavanagh spotted her on her way to college along Raglan Road on her way to UCD. She was known as a great Dublin beauty of the day and was known as being very charismatic. She had been called to Hollywood for a screen test with a view to starring in a film but she lost out to Maureen O’Hara. She had originally wanted to be a writer but at sixteen her father, who was progressive and a doctor, brought her to Dublin and enrolled her in the medical school at UCD. One of her classmates at the time was Patrick Hillary who would go on to become President of Ireland. Her father told her as he enrolled her “I can leave you money but that’s easily lost. Instead, I will leave you something much better; a set of useful skills.”
From this fateful sighting a friendship formed between Hilda and Patrick Kavanagh although he was 20 years her senior. His love was unrequited and she later married Donagh O’Malley Minister of Education. She died in 1991 but is always remembered in words, song and in the imaginations of anyone who cares to think of Patrick and Hilda, like me, on an Autumn’s day, like today, on Raglan Road.
“On a quiet street where old ghosts meet, I see her walking now.” - Patrick Kavanagh
Watch this amazing snippet from an RTE documentary from 1987 where Hilda (still magnificent in old age) talks of the inspiration of Raglan Road.
With all this reminiscing want to hear Patrick Kavanagh and Luke Kelly sing Raglan Road? Take it away Patrick & Luke .
An amazing post featuring Patrick’s love letters to Hilda by The National Library Blog
All pictures taken by Ruaruth on Raglan Road October 2013. Ghostly sightings nil.
