Finding MacNeice

At the back of the Mill Ponds near Carrickfergus Leisure Centre, there is an old graveyard accessed by a laneway from the North Road. This graveyard used to overlook the rectory Louis MacNeice lived in as a child - the statues used to peer over the top of the hedge and frighten him! When MacNeice was very young, his mother had serious mental health difficulties, which led to her having to leave the house - she never returned.

MacNeice wrote a poem about it, one that has haunted me forever, called 'Autobiography', and I always think about the poem when I visit the little graveyard. Here, I reimagine the young MacNeice that day, and how the impact of his young life formed part of his poetry, and try to pay homage to one of the greatest poets of his age, and his impact on the poetry of the North.

(Image credit N Wharry)

FINDING MACNEICE - JO ZEBEDEE

I came to see the man who brought Snow to Ulster. It's everywhere, if you know where to look: in his poem, in tributes, in a rock band's name. Snow. An undercurrent of belonging exuded in our language.

I read his words, and then about him, and it brought me here to where his house once stood. It’s gone, destroyed, but the graveyard which haunted his childhood remains, agelessly, and it’s to here I walk, the early morning sun lighting the paths ahead.I take the smaller one, mossy and less trodden. As I walk down it, already I sense I am leaving the world behind, moving to an olden place which holds its secrets close.

I shiver in the chill air, the sun weak through the tree cover. I come to the end and the path widens to enter, seamlessly, his graveyard. Along the wall the statues loom where they overlooked the poet’s childhood garden. They stand, their stone eyes unchanged. They line the break between graveyard and garden: crosses, madonnas and angels, and I can see how they could infect a child’s dreams.

I sit, the peace of the morning ebbing, turning towards day. Behind me, I hear the children at the municipal pond; in front, the steady thrum of traffic on the school run. Thrice, a train roars past, the line near me, elevated, and each time I barely stop myself from crying out. Was the train line, here, then? The road; was it there, a track for carts and horses? The pond? Or just the graveyard, holding its endless secrets.

Respectfully, I move to the mausoleum in the centre. I push its half-height gate, the rust staining my fingers. Here is the centre of the cemetery, the place where the cold magic lingers, its residue in the air. I can smell it, tangy from the nearby sea, and then, under it, a musky smell; dark, enchanting. Here, I set my device.

Choose one, they’d told me. I’d thought about it, tossing in the night for weeks. The chance to meet my grandfather and know him, not imagine him? The day Titanic left Belfast and sailed down the Lough, crowds lining the quay to wave it on its way? To stand with Pepys and watch London burn, or watch Shakespeare stage his first play. So many, I thought of. This I chose.

I turn the dial back to one hundred, hoping it works. I sit on a wall, my back to the carpark behind. Leaves break free from the trees around me like soft butterflies, emerging into the light. I feel dizzy, lightheaded, ecstatic. The voices from the pond fade, the traffic silences, but still the smells remain; the sea, the old, cold ground, the place.

I wait for it to end, for the world to stop and quieten once more, then stand and walk back to the path. The gate is no longer rusty, the mausoleum vibrant now, cared for. Loved. I reach the path, and the road ahead is a mere track, the embankment for the trains vanished. The shimmering sea is visible in its place, shining at the end of the track. Beside me, new, sits the house. I stop by its small wall and wait. I feel like I’m dreaming; I know I’m not.

Voices again; more children. This time from the house, and I see the boy child running after his mother, crying for her not to go, to come back early, or never at all. I stand, silent, a ghost from the future, and watch the defining moment of a life. I witness the moment which led to the snow and think, I chose well.