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De Facto John O’Donohue is dead. A godfather of souls has been wrenched from among the people.
POET, PHILOSOPHER AND SCHOLAR The late John O’Donohue
On the death of John O’Donohue
De Facto Liamy MacNally
It is fitting that his latest book is entitled Benedictus – A Book of Blessings. The fresh ripples of its words have still not reached the shore and he is gone. John O’Donohue is dead. Cruel death has torn the son from his mother, Josie. A brother has been stolen from two men and a woman. A godfather of souls has been wrenched from among the people. He would have enjoyed the descriptions at his passing. “The well-known writer and poet…the philosopher…the author…the scholar.” They are but mere words to let us know that he was loved and he loved. My Midwest Radio colleague, Gerry Glennon, made no apology about always describing John O’Donohue as ‘a national treasure’. Gerry had the honour of introducing John O’Donohue to a Westport audience some years ago and spoke at length without notes, from the heart about a kindred spirit. “Your heart has grown heavy with loss; And though this loss has wounded others too, No one knows what has been taken from you When the silence of absence deepens.”
THE CONAMARA MAN FROM CLARE John O’Donohue was a native of Clare and lived in Conamara. He is best known as the author of Anam Cara, a book on Celtic spirituality. He was due to travel to America later this month for engagements to coincide with the launch of the American edition of Benedictus. He was a sought-after speaker at conferences on spirituality and leadership. He was highly intellectual and at ease with philosophical concepts. He thought and taught outside the box, yet he brought people back to their roots, ever the radical. When such a highly gifted spirit is endowed to the Church the only requirements are time and space. Ordained, he was more a Christ man than priested. His book of poetry, Conamara Blues, should be on every spiritual syllabus, if only for the meditations on the Rosary. Many decades will have arisen for his eternal repose since his untimely death. One can only pray for him from the title poem, that he will be “…in buoyant ease Between the fill and fall Of waves Of Hail Marys.” He had his faults, some he acknowledged and some he preferred not to talk about, like the rest of us. He liked company and enjoyed good food and good drink. He was funny and charming, yet very private. He loved language and had a great grá for the national tongue in which he was a fluent speaker. He was earthy and academic. He knew about the ‘living history’ of the stone walls in the west of Ireland, yet wrote in German about Hegel. His father was a stone mason. He knew the life lines carved into stone walls.When those ‘walls’ were threatened he became involved with the Burren Action Group campaigning against the Interpretative Centre at Mullaghmore in his native Clare. His colleague, Ms Lelia Doolan described him as a ‘glorious friend and one of life’s great spirits’. He appeared to some people to be a mass of contradictions but he was simply a rooted intellectual. ‘The long fellow’ was gifted in having his feet on the ground even when his head was in the clouds. He was forever the pilgrim soul, always on the journey home and forever enjoying the scenery on the detour.
THE RECORDINGS One of his great legacies is his voice. We are blessed in that John O’Donohue’s recordings are available. His topics are many, centring on various themes of Celtic spirituality and the great sense of Being that is God, from Divine Beauty to Eternal Echoes. His voice has a resonance that is hard to find. It is reminiscent of the power of the ‘creative breath’ – ruah in Hebrew. Every sentence has been carefully crafted. Every word has a meaning and every letter has a place. He is enjoyable listening. He commands attention by the tone of his voice, not out of any sense of fear but rather that one is afraid one might miss something important. His insights are more One-derful than wonderful. His sense of the Divine Imagination is immense. He can link up thoughts and ideas and keep us tuned in to who we are, where we came from and where we are going. He is like the signpost on life’s journey. It is hard to believe that he is gone. The Catholic prayers of commendation spring to mind – ‘May the angels lead you into Paradise; May the martyrs come to welcome you and take you to the Holy City, the new and eternal Jerusalem; May the choirs of angels welcome you and lead to the bosom of Abraham where Lazarus is poor no longer; May you find eternal rest.’ DEATH’S PERSPECTIVE Death has that great gift of putting things into perspective. We need death to keep us in painful check. Death is the greatest face-to-face truth. John O’Donohue wrote often about death. He had no greater love of it than anyone else and, if the truth be told, feared it as much as the rest of us. What he had was an understanding of it, the link between light and dark, the visible and the invisible. He could somehow view it from the bridge. It did not make the ‘far side’ any more enticing yet he possessed that ‘idir eatharthu’ sense. He knew that the only constancy is death. He writes in ‘Entering Death’: “I pray that you will have the blessing Of being consoled and sure about your death. May you know in your soul that there is no need to be afraid. When your time comes, may you have every blessing and strength you need… May your soul smile in the embrace Of your Anam Cara.” The book Anam Cara contains one of John’s most beautiful poems, dedicated to his beloved mother, Josie. His words, in death, take on a new meaning. “On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble, May the clay dance to balance you. And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window and the ghost of loss gets into you, May a flock of colours, indigo, red, green and azure blue come to awaken in you a meadow of delight. When the canvas frays in the currach of thought and the stain of ocean blackens beneath you, May there come across the waters a path of yellow moonlight to bring you safely home. May the nourishment of earth be yours, May the clarity of light be yours, May the fluency of the ocean be yours, May the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you, An invisible cloak to mind your life.” In The Wonder and Strangeness of a Day, from Benedictus, he writes: “We dodder through our days as if they were our surest belongings. No day belongs to us. Each day is a gift. Tragically, it is often only when we are about to lose a thing that the scales fall from our eyes, but it is usually too late…” He died in his sleep, befitting the gentle giant we knew. Peace, my friend.
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