A Bed of Silk Not blessed with the gift of Gaeilge ón gcliabhán, nor boasting a Master’s in toponymy, and yet I know enough to figure out that beg means small, more big, bally townland, that bane is white, duff black and boy yellow. I’m certain kill’s a church and kyle a wood, that ros could be a promontory or grove, knock means a hill, clare or moy a plain. So I reach for the cartographer’s handsome book whose pages are splashed with art and poetry to seek out the delicate island of Inniskeen, the hillside of the women, Slievenamon, the grove of the brothers, Gurranabraher, Lugnaquilla’s hollow in the woods, the flaming waterfall at Assaroe, or Kenmare’s cosy little nest, Neidín, I contemplate a resting place in Clare, in Labasheeda where the cold comfort of a tomb is transfigured by the alchemy of the Gaelic tongue into a sumptuous nuptial bed of silk. Michael Durack
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