Cranes
Introduction
The Common Crane, Grus Grus, has been part of our landscape and Irish culture for thousands of years, and yet they have faded from our memory mostly unremarked. We in the countryside often refer to the heron as Crane, as if the crane were not really gone; is that him or his cousin? The warpoet, Robert Graves, (1895-1985), in discussing cranes in his book The White Goddess borrowed heavily from Ruaidri O Flaithbheartaigh. Graves explains how the crane is connected to Celtic spiritual history, through Ogham being transported in a crane skin bag, formerly belonging to Manama Mac Lir, sea god, by Ogma, the god of literacy. (Graves wrote a regular literary magazine for many years called The Crane Bag.) The magical references abound. for example,Druids wore cloaks of crane feathers.
Equally, cranes were a daily norm, the crane was a valued and frequent pet in Irish households until medieval times.
Ó Flaithbheartaigh, who lived between 1629 and 1718, is another interesting and barely remembered contributor to Irish heritage. He was one of the last old Irish Lords, displaced from his lands by Cromwell and his Irish accomplices, and died in poverty in Spiddal.. A very learned man, he took his information from records and folklore a millennia old.
English historians have discredited Graves, and writings on Ogham and Irish folklore, but historically the Irish are used to this attitude, and give it the respect it deserves. (However there are still those who base their research on the colonial British view of everything Irish, and repeat that Ogham script was a development from early Christian times, Irish savages mimicking Roman letters and so on.) Regardless, the connection is recorded of the significance of the crane to Irish literature and wisdom. In defence of Irish culture and intelligence, that the pre-christian Irish did not favour written documentation is well acknowledged, the medieval Irish extraordinary capacity for mental acuity being another fact that colonial Britian put much effort into discrediting, but is recorded (try writing poetry in medieval Irish style) and the illegal Hedge school education with rudimentary materials all attest to Irish flair for oral knowledge. My fathers favourite insult was; “Do you want me to write it down for you?” (The answer was not Yes). As you can probably tell, I’m arguing that the Crane Ogham connection is truly, Irish style, ancient.
cultural icon, or anyone who may simply wish to welcome its return to our shores as a native species.
