The Ballad of Father Gilligan
The Ballad of Father Gilligan - W.B. Yeats
The poem takes the form of a ballad which was traditionally sung with short and regular stanzas telling a short but profoundly meaningful story. Yeats’s poems are not usually overtly religious, but this poem is one. Though Yeats was a protestant who later turned to theosophy and mysticism, this poem is Catholic in tone. Also contrary to his practice, Yeats uses an Irish word in the poem – ‘mavrone’ which in
Irish is ‘mobhron’, a cry of grief.
Not only does the poem address the poverty of rural Ireland in the poem but also the extreme religiosity of the village people of
Ireland. That Father Gilligan could not make it to the bedside of the dying man before he died and that no priest performed the rites of extreme unction i.e. that the man did not die in a state of grace, would close the door of heaven to him. The element of Catholic tradition is obvious here and the divine intercession to make it otherwise is an assertion of a loving, kind God.
This particular ballad of Yeats seems to be a homage to the traditional poetry and legend of his country. It is said that the poet was attracted by the immediate, naïve beauty of similar Irish stories and songs that he went on collecting through out his mature years gaining fresh insights as he passionately studied them. There is no doubt that this dramatic narrative poem draws upon the character and the form of the traditional Irish ballad.
The poem takes the form of a ballad which was traditionally sung with short and regular stanzas telling a short but profoundly meaningful story. Yeats’s poems are not usually overtly religious, but this poem is one. Though Yeats was a protestant who later turned to theosophy and mysticism, this poem is Catholic in tone. Also contrary to his practice, Yeats uses an Irish word in the poem – ‘mavrone’ which in
Irish is ‘mobhron’, a cry of grief.
Not only does the poem address the poverty of rural Ireland in the poem but also the extreme religiosity of the village people of
Ireland. That Father Gilligan could not make it to the bedside of the dying man before he died and that no priest performed the rites of extreme unction i.e. that the man did not die in a state of grace, would close the door of heaven to him. The element of Catholic tradition is obvious here and the divine intercession to make it otherwise is an assertion of a loving, kind God.
This particular ballad of Yeats seems to be a homage to the traditional poetry and legend of his country. It is said that the poet was attracted by the immediate, naïve beauty of similar Irish stories and songs that he went on collecting through out his mature years gaining fresh insights as he passionately studied them. There is no doubt that this dramatic narrative poem draws upon the character and the form of the traditional Irish ballad.