It has been a bit windy in these parts, as you may have heard. Becoming stir-crazy, I decided to brave the weather this afternoon and go and collect some seaweed for the garden. There are various things you can do with seaweed for your plants, such as making seaweed fertilizer, but I am a more direct person and just spread it on top of the rather poor soil we have. I then leave it to the worms and wiggly things to munch it up and drag it below to enrich the earth. I’m not a great gardener and, in fact, my chief pleasure in using seaweed is the collecting of it. After the storms we have had, the shores are knee deep in slidingly soft and luxurious piles of kelp and bladder wrack. If you are very lucky you might find thongweed, bushy rainbow wrack or even dead man’s bootlaces. Such wonderful names and due to the strength of the swell the usual invasive species of plastic drinks bottle, disposable lighter and polystyrene packing appear to be missing. Seaweed has long been used in Ireland and has featured in art and poetry. Such as this piece written mid- 19th century by Moira O’Neill:
Sea Wrack
The wrack was dark an’ shiny where it floated in the sea,
There was no-one in the brown boat but only him an’ me;
Him to cut the sea wrack, me to mind the boat,
An’ not a word between us the hours we were afloat.
The wet wrack,
The sea wrack,
The wrack was strong to cut.
We laid it on the gray rocks to wither in the sun,
An’ what should call my lad, to sail from Cushendeen
With a low moon, a full tide, a swell upon the deep,
Him to sail the old boat, me to fall asleep.
The dry wrack,
The sea wreck,
The wrack was dead so soon.
There’ a fire low upon the rocks to burn the wrack to kelp,
There’ a boat gone down upon the Moyle, an’ sorra’ one to help!
Him beneath the salt sea, me upon the shore,
By sunlight or moonlight we’ll lift the wrack no more.
The dark wrack,
The sea wrack,
The wrack may drift ashore.
(Moira O’Neill)
Moira’s real name was Agnes Shakespeare Higginson, which is much more colourful than her chosen pseudonym; like a bushy rainbow wrack becoming nothing more than a seaweed. No doubt Agnes, an Irish-Canadian, felt that her birth name lacked a certain Irish authenticity. George William Russell, however, was an Irish artist who attempted to make his name more interesting by calling himself Aeon (life or being). This fanciness was queried by a proof-reader and, apparently, George at that point became AE. His mystic desire for simplicity can also be seen in his shore paintings that are quite often bereft of seaweed. And so we move from seaweed to art to simplicity; all of which come together at our imminent West Cork College sign-up night for our courses. We are, amongst other courses, offering art history, taught by the wonderful artist Toma McCuullim. The simplicity comes from the ease with which you can sign up and join our courses. And the seaweed…comes from the scent of it still attached to my boots.
AE’s Figures by a Moonlit Sea 1867
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