Dante in the underworld of the Dunmore Cave

the underworld than in the underworld of a cave, the Dunmore Cave or Dearc Fhearna, meaning Cave of the Alders from the Irish which, according to the 9th Century Book of Triads, or Book of rees, was considered to be one of the three darkest places in Ireland. However, on this particular afternoon of Kilkenny’s annual Arts Festival, the American poet, Robert Pinsky, illuminated the cool, damp dark of Dearc Fhearna with his soft American accent.

ere are many magnificent, and unique, venues for music recitals and performances in Kilkenny; there’s our 730 year old Cathedral of Saint Canice after whom our city is called, and whose acoustics are second to none, there’s the 800 year old Dominican Black Abbey and our 850 year old Kilkenny Castle but older by far than all of these venerable venues was the location for this unique poetry reading by Robert Pinsky, the ‘underworld’ of the Dunmore Cave which dates back a mere 3000 years or more.

BY GERRY MORAN

Ihave been to my fair share of poetry readings over the years. I’ve been to the good, the indi erent and to those that you never forget: for instance

John Montague at Listowel Writers Week many years ago, Montague relishing reading as much as we were enjoying listening. And then there was Seamus Heaney and the American poet Samuel Hazo reading together in Butler House, Hazo reciting his poems from memory, something I’ve never come across before or since. ere was Paul Durcan in Cleere’s Little eatre, Durcan reading as only he can, with a quivering, fragile intensity that engages and enthrals and there was the late Brendan Kennelly in the Long Gallery of Kilkenny Castle, Brendan’s sonorous tones holding us spellbound.

And then, just last August, there was the American poet, Robert Pinsky, reading from his translation of Dante’s Inferno in the most unique location of all –the Dunmore Cave, a few miles out the road. Where better to read about Dante’s descent into

And now, on this August afternoon, in the Dunmore Cave, Robert Pinsky is talking about ‘evil’, ‘the evil that is done unto to us by others, is nothing’, he tells us, ‘compared to the evil we do unto ourselves’. And the Dunmore Cave had known evil. According to e Annals of the Four Masters a massacre occurred at the cave in 928 A.D. e 17th Century Annals tell of the Viking, Godfrey, who was hounded out of York in England but ended up on our shores and, along with some Vikings from Dublin, made his way to Kilkenny where he slaughtered up to a thousand people, men, women and children, who had taken refuge in the cave. Robert Pinsky was well worth the 353-step trek down into the bowels of the Dunmore Cave. It was a once-o , unique and very special poetry reading, one that will live in the memory of the thirty or so of us who managed to get our hands on a ticket – a ticket to Dante’s underworld in the underworld of Kilkenny’s Dunmore Cave.