Love for The Emigrant Irish

Eavan Boland published her poem, “The Emigrant Irish” in 1986.  This poem is about how much people take their technology for granted and how the Irish would have lived without these things.  Throughout her poem, Boland suggests that we as human beings can learn from these emigrants.

The poem’s structure is erratic.  The first line of the poem is single, but the next four lines are in two couplets.  The following five lines are a single stanza, as are the next three lines.  The poem ends like it begins with a single line.  Although this composition makes the poem hard to follow, the off-beat shape makes the smaller segments stick out, and the larger sections all stick together.  I personally like this structure due to how Boland carries certain lines, ending one in an incomplete sentence before finishing it in the next line in a way that makes each line important.

“Like oil lamps we put them out the back,

of our houses, of our minds. We had lights

better than, newer than and then

a time came, this time and now

we need them. Their dread, makeshift example.”

For example, the third line starts with “better”, and the fifth line starts with “we”. Both words snag my attention as a reader: “better” indicates an improvement and can either start a new line or carry the weight of the line above it while the word “we” practically jumps out of the stanza to include the reader in Boland’s poem.  As the poem flows, it states that we, the humans of the modern age, need the examples of the emigrant Irish.  It specifically says that if we observe how they lived, we can become better.

“They would have thrived on our necessities.

What they survived we could not even live.

By their lights now it is time to

imagine how they stood there, what they stood with,

that their possessions may become our power.”

Once again, Boland disjoins the third line so that the fourth can start with the word “imagine”.  This helps the fourth line establish itself as well as connect the third line to the fourth line.  I like how Boland points out that the Irish would have been able to live a bare existence, and how dependent humans as a species depend on technology in the 21^st century. 

“Cardboard. Iron. Their hardships parceled in them.

Patience. Fortitude. Long-suffering

in the bruise-colored dusk of the New World.

And all the old songs. And nothing to lose.”

 My favorite part of Bolland’s poem has to be the ending. It evokes the spirit of these old Irish that the rest of the poem builds up to, using words like “hardships”,” Patience”, and “Fortitude” to emphasize what these Irish had and what we might have lost.   That last line makes the “bruise-colored dusk of the New World” melt away and hint at a greater, simpler future for humanity if we just follow their example.