Glenmalure poet brings listeners on Miners’ Way walk
WICKLOW based poet Jane Clarke walked the Miners Way which has inspired a new sequence of poems as part of a BBC4 radio show.
The show aired on Saturday just gone but will be repeated this Saturday at 11.30 p. m.
The award- winning poet walks the 19k Miners’ Way and chats to local people who have an association with the trail. Jane’s own poetry was inspired by the mining heritage in County Wicklow and the Glendasan, Glendalough and Glenmalure valleys.
In Glenmalure, at on end of the trail, local historian Carmel O’Toole explains the crusher house building in Baravore and its significance to the mining industry.
Mountain Leader, Charles O’Byrne interprets the landscape and identified the birdsong audible in the Scots Pine trees, themselves linked to the mining story of Glendalough. More than a million trees were planted by the mining companies to provide a supply of pit props for the mining tunnels which extended for miles underground.
The programme begins and ends with an interview with Robert Carter, a former miner of Glendasan and a victim of a fateful explosion on January 21, 1957 which claimed the life of work colleague Jim Mernagh. Now aged 83, Robert is still working to preserve the mining heritage.
Jane’s beautiful delivery of her poetry written especially about this mining story and its people is skilfully interspersed throughout the programme.
The programme can also be listened to through the link https://www. bbc. co. uk/ programmes/m000htr0.