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"More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then lump them together to save time. All souls' day." (U6.930) |
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"Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all of them." (U6.933) |
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"Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you what they were. So and So, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid five shillings in the pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew." (U6.937) |
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"Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell." (U6.940)
The poem Bloom is (quite appropriately) re-titling is "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray (1716-1771). |
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"Entered into rest the protestants put it. Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times." (U6.942) |
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"A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hu! Not a budge out of him. Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder. Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave." (U6.949)
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"The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the boy. Apollo that was." (U6.954)
A statue of the Sacred Heart in Glasnevin (Image courtesy of the ZJJF). |
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The Sacred Heart is a religious devotion to the physical heart of Jesus Christ, as a symbol of his divine love for man. It originated with Marie Alacoque (seen in this holy card). |
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"How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As you are now so once were we.
Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice." (U6.960) |
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"Well, the voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in the house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather. Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain hellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph reminds you of the face." (U6.962) |
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"An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it." (U6.973) |
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"Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was buried here by torchlight, wasn't he?" (U6.977)
To this day it is not known where the remains of Robert Emmet are laid, possibly in Glasnevin or in the yard of St Michan Church, as this PC suggests. |
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"Cremation better." (U6.984) |
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"Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest." (U6.987)
The towers of silence (dakhma, dokhma, or doongerwadi) are circular raised structures used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead, as they consider a dead body to be nasu (= unclean). Corpses are thus exposed to the sun and to birds of prey, precluding the pollution of earth or fire. Bodies are arranged in 3 rings: men on the outside, women in the second circle, and children innermost. (Image courtesy of the ZJJF) |
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The ritual precinct of the towers of silence may only be entered by a special class of pallbearers. Once the bones have been bleached by the sun and wind, which can take as long as a year, they are collected in an ossuary pit at the center of the tower and/or are eventually washed out to sea. In Parsi Zoroastrian tradition (India), exposure of the dead is additionally considered to be an individual's final act of charity, in sustaining the birds. |