On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.
I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.
‘On Raglan Road’ is a famous ballad about unrequited love immortalized by the resounding voice of Luke Kelly. The words were originally written by Patrick Kavanagh, a Monaghan native, who became besotted with a woman, Hilda Moriarty, although she was twenty years younger than he was.The poem was published under the title: ‘Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away’, in the Irish Press in 1946. Miriam was the name of his brother’s girlfriend and according to his brother used the name “to conceal his embarrassment of being jilted.”
On Raglan Road is where Patrick met Hilda, probably while she was en route to UCD where she studied medicine. It’s not clear if Kavanagh moved into Mrs. Kenny’s ten shilling–a-week high-class lodging at no.19 Raglan Road after this or had been living there at the time. However, it’s rumoured he stayed in the top floor room with the low window that overlooks the junction at Elgin road.
They spent some time together and Moriarty enjoyed his poetry and conversation, although teased him about his poetry on agricultural matters (at that time Kavanagh was submitting poems to ‘The Farmers Journal’).
The following Christmas he invited himself down to Moriarty’s home in Kerry and it soon became obvious that her father did not see Kavanagh as a match for his treasured daughter. In a biography written by Antoinette Quinn that further illustrates their relationship, it recounts an autobiographical fable written by Kavanagh at the time titled: ‘The Lay of the Crooked Knight’, which sees a dishevelled knight with a ploughman’s gait whom his love attempts to gentrify by first stopping his drinking of whiskey and porter because it makes him too excitable. A book ‘Raglan Road –Irish Love Songs and the Women Who Inspired Them’ by poet Gerry Hanberry gives further insights into the relationship.
“In May, 1945, Patrick brought Hilda with him on a visit to Dunsaney Castle in County Meath where he planned to meet with Lord Dunsaney who had shown some interest in the struggling poet’s work. He took Hilda for a walk through the castle grounds where bluebells were growing beneath the trees and later Patrick wrote a poem on unrequited love inspired by the flowers and by his day out with her in County Meath.
“The untitled poem now known as ‘Bluebells’, contains the idea that ‘love is but a season/ Like spring…’ That and the use of nature imagery together with the various specific locations link the poem ‘Bluebells’ to the later and superior poem ‘On Raglan Road’. In ‘Bluebells’ one can see the poetic mind working towards something finer that will emerge when he comes to write his great song of unrequited love.”
His love for Hilda Moriarty was not returned and she went on to marry Donagh O’Malley, who went on to become the Minister of Education. Kavanagh married Katherine Barry Moloney in April, 1967 and lived with her in Waterloo Road, Dublin. He died on November, 30th the same year in Dublin. Moriarty laid a wreath of red roses in the shape of an H at his graveside.
The poem became a song 1966 when Kavanagh met Luke Kelly in The Bailey pub in Dublin. Kelly would have known Kavanagh from the Dublin pub and literary scene and almost certainly would have been aware of the poem’s origins. Kavanagh already had an air chosen- an old folk melody called ‘Fainne Geal and Lae’- and after he’d relayed the ballad in his emphysemic tone Kelly recorded the song and went on to give the ballad the legendary legacy it deserves.
The song, often known simply as Raglan Road, has since been sung by Mark Knopfler, Ed Sheeran, Billy Bragg, Loreena McKennitt, Roger Daltrey, Dick Gaughan, Mary Black, Tommy Fleming, Sinead O’Connor and the Young Dubliners, among others. Although the Luke Kelly rendition is widely regarded as the definitive interpretation, my personal favourite is the version by Van Morrison and The Chieftains from the 1988 album ‘Irish Heartbeat’.