Late Autumn always brings with it a kind of pleasant sadness that seems to resonate particularly with Celts. The poet Paul Verlaine captures this mood perfectly in his "Chanson d'automne". ("The long sobs of Autumn's violins wound my heart with a monotonous languor.") Despite the commercialisation and Americanisation of Hallowe'en the final day of October and the first few days of November cast a shadow that lasts through to Winter.
At this time of year my thoughts often turn to Derry/ londonderry. For a long time I've looked on dear old Stroke City as my other home town. My family spent a lot of summers there in the '60s and '70s and I visited now and then until my Da died nine years ago (he had moved back to the city of his boyhood after my Mammy passed away). As coincidence would have it this was on the 26th of October.
Grief has a quality to it that makes you feel as if you've retreated from the world. Events pass you by and if you notice anything outside your immediate circle of loss it's as if you're seeing it though an inverted telescope. I was vaguely aware of a lot of strange revelry going on in the city. It puzzled me as I struggled with sudden bereavement. People in ghost costumes danced at the periphery of my vision with no hallucinogens or alcohol involved, at least on my part. Pieces fell into place and the puzzle resolved itself over the years: Derry had become the centre for Europe's biggest Hallowe'en festival.
The night of the 1st of November (All Saints Day) used to be a focus of some attention in Derry and throughout Ireland. This is the eve of All Souls Day and I can remember my Aunt Vera telling us about the old tradition of leaving bread and water out for the Holy Souls. She remembered one All Souls Eve in particular when, as a little girl, she'd been naughty, though she was unspecific about the details. My Granny threatened to make her stay downstairs with the food and the drink....and the visiting Holy Souls. (The Carlins have always been masters of child psychology). Nothing materialised from the threat of course but it made an impression on Aunt Vera. Me too as I write this more than 40 years later.
Derry has given me a big chunk of memories. Most of them are happy and some a little melancholy. I'm currently adding to them through the crime fiction of Brian McGilloway. As well as being an excellent writer he's the head of the English department at St. Columb's college in Derry. The Inspector Devlin novels capture the sense of the northwest of Ireland and the border between the North and South perfectly. Appropriately enough McGilloway's debut novel was "Borderlands" and involves the investigation of a crime which straddles the border between the UK and Eire.
(Before "The Troubles" began in earnest one of the childhood amusements that boggled my mind was to take a walk out from the Creggan estate ,part of Londonderry and firmly in the UK, to the border with the Irish Republic. My cousins and I dawdled to the border in about 20 minutes so that we could stand with one foot in each country or just spend our time jumping back and forth. By the mid 70s this unmanned border crossing between Donegal and County Derry was blocked off by a trench and barbed wire).
The Devlin novels are also exceptional in that the author has gone out of his way to avoid many of the cliches that so often adhere like limpets to fictional policemen. Benedict Devlin is no maverick, hard-drinking loner. His family life is an important part of each book. For more background there's an excellent interview at the "It's A Crime" website.
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