Samuel Beckett's Dublin*

Zone of Stones: Samuel Beckett's Dublin* EOlN O'BRIEN, The Charitable Infirmary, Jervis Street, Dublin 1. Traditionally the Arnold K. Henry lectureisdevotedto that there should be an annual lecture devoted to a non- a non-medical subject and though there is an important medical topic to which spouses and friends of College medical association with Samuel Beckett - namely the staff might be invited and in acknowledgement of role that he played in establishing the lrish Red Cross Henry'sstatureand wellestablished reputationof giving Hospital in Saint L6 in Normandy in 1945 -- I have cultural activity a placeof precedencewith hisstudents, resisted the temptation to make this the subject of this they named the lecture in his memory. evening's lecture, preferring to maintain the tradition of Samuel Beckett was born in Foxrock in 1906.1986, selecting a topic devoid of medical content. .the year of his eightieth birthday was the occasion of a Why, one may ask, is this memorial lecture so series of international seminarsandconferenceson this designated? The answer rests, of course, primarily with .Irish writer who is accepted by most tobeoneof thetruly the man Arnold Henry but not entirely. Henry was born gifted writers of this century and acknowleged by many in Bray in 1886 and so not only is this the sixteenth to be one of the greatest writers of all time.3 memorial lecture in his honour but we may also My explorationoftheBeckettcountry beganadecade acknowledge thecentenary of his birth. Hegraduatedin ago. There had been a few hints from Beckettscholars, Trinity in 191 1, shorlly afterwards becoming a fellow of most notably from the late Con Leventhal.4 Katharine this College in 1914. He departed Dublin for Serbia to Worth,5 Sighle Kennedy.6 and Vivian Mercier,' that an work as an army surgeon, fled the country when the unexplored and exciting terrain awaited discovery in Germans invaded in 1916 and joined the French Army, Beckett's homeland. returning to Dublin to thestaffoftheRichmondHospital The geographical extent of The Becketl Country is in 1919. Here we may note not only the maturing readily identified - it is confined almost entirely to the influence that his travels must have had upon him, but city of Dublin and the sutrounding county, most also a scientific literary interest as he became editor of especially Foxrock, and the coast of Dun Laoghaire, the Dublin Journal of Medical Science. However, the Killiney and Sandycove. The heart of The Beckell wanderlust was soon at work and in 1925we find him in Country lies in the magic landscape of the Dublin Cairo as Professor of Surgery. Here he wrote his mountains. Thereare, it is true, references toother parts Exposure of the Long Bones later revised during a of Ireland, but for the greater part theseserve merely as seven years period as Reader in Surgery with theBritish topographical locations and they are not a creative Postgraduate Medical School, and republished as influence. Easy though it may be to chart the Extensile Exposure1. It remains to this day a classic in geographic borders of The Beckett Country, the same anatomy. In 1947 he became Professor of Anatomy in cannot be said of its place in Beckett's writing. When I this College where he formed a lasting friendship with began my researches I did so in the naive belief that i Tom Garry, who he elevated to the position with the would have toconcentrateonly on theearly prose works quaint title - Tutor and Prosector in Anatomy.2 Henry and poetry. More Pricks Than Kicks,e Mercier and died in 1962and hisshade rested ingentleobscurity for Gamier,g Murphy.10 Watt," and The Trilogy12 together eight years until Harry O'Flanagan, who as registrar in with the pre-war poetry seemed to me to contain all the 1970 silpported by Tom Wilson, proposed to Council influences of a place and person that was lrish in Beckett's writing. I was greatly mistaken. The influence of Dublin and its people extends throughout Beckett's 'The Sixteenth Arnold K. Henry Lecture, delivered in The Royal College of work, and though the lrish presence faded a little in the Surgeons on Thursday 9th October. 1986. (An illuslrated lecture based on The DeckeffCounlr Sa~nuelBeckefl'JlrelandbyEoinO'Brien.TheBlackCalPress middle period of the fifties when the French influence and Faber and &ber. 1986 ) became dominant, it returned with increasing force in Journal of the Irish Colleges of Physlclans and Surgeons. Vol. 16. No. 2 Aprll1987 69 the later writings and is at its most powerful and given to the landscape something that the legionsof poignant in Company,, written in 1980: sheep and lambs could not give. These latter were Nowhere in particular on the way from A to Z. Or springing into the world every minute, the grass was say for verisimilitude the Ballyogan Road. That dear spangled with scarlet after-births, the larks were old back road. Somewhere on the Ballyogan Road in singing, the hedges were breaking, the sun was lieu of nowhere in particular. Where no truck any shining, the sky was Mary's cloak, the daisies were more. Somewhere on the Ballyogan Roadon theway there, everything was in order. Only thecuckoowas from A to Z. Head sunk totting up the tally on the wanting. It wasoneof thosespring evenings when it verge of the ditch. Foothills to left. Croker's Acres is a matter of somedifficulty to keep God out of one's ahead. Father's shade to right and a little to the rear. meditations. So many times already round the earth.. Topcoat (More Pricks than Kicks, p.109) once green stiff with age and grime from chin to Foxrock insteps. Battered once buff block hat and quarter Foxrock. Samuel Beckett's birth place though more boots still a match. No other garments if any to be developed than in Beckett's childhood still retains an seen. Out since break of day and night now falling. atmosphere that is rural, elegant and sheltered. Its Reckoning ended on together from nought anew. As inhabitants today, as in Bill Beckett's time, are the if bound for Stepaside. When suddenly you cut successful business and professional citizens of Dublin through the hedge and vanish hobbling east across - there is an air of refined affluence about the place: the aallo~s.-. (Companv. p.30-31) Belacqua was heartily glad to get back to his parent's 'comfortable resiaence, ineffably This phenomenon is hardly surprising. Ageing man detached and situated and so on, and his first act, recalls with greater clarity the events of youth rather once spent the passion of greeting after so long and than those of later years, but it is Beckett's treatmentof bitter a separation, was to plunge his prodigal head this biological occurrence that makes his writing in this into the bush of verbena that clustered about the old regard so unique. There is, for those who wish to pursue porch (wonderful bush itwas to besure, even making it, a most profound analysis of the ageing process in every due allowance for the kind southern aspect it Beckett's writing. When I had completed my researches enjoyed, it never had been known to miss a summer for The Beckell Counlry, 1 had consulted allof Beckett's since first it was reared from a tiny seedling) and criticism, plays, poetry and prose.14 in all of which an longly to swim and swoon on the rich bosom of its lrish presence was detectable in varying degree. fragrance, a fragrance in which the least of his In identifying the influences of Ireland in the Beckett childish joysand sorrows wereand would foreverbe canon I do so, not fromany greatsenseof national pride, embalmed. but as a statement of fact. I have no wish toseeSamuel (Dream of Fair to Middling Women, p. 128) Beckett, ignored for so long in his homeland, seized upon by the patriotic purveyors of national character In the family home Cooldrinagh on Kerrymount and genius who would lave him paraded in the market Avenue, Beckett grew up in an atmosphereof peaceand place for no other purlJose than to fatten the national comfort: purse. Beckett's natic~nality,taken at face value is nothing more than ar accident, as a consequence of None but tranquil sounds, the clicking of mallet which he was brought up in a small island with a people and bal1,a rakeon pebbles,adistant lawn-mower, the peculiar to that regioi. There is, of course, more to it bell of my beloved church. And birds of course, than that. Beckett's ~onfinementto lreland occurred blackbird and thrush, their song sadly dying. during a period of his life when influences are formative vanquished by the heat, and leaving dawn's high and lasting: a period when the culture, mannerismsand boughs for the bushes'gloom. Contentedly 1 inhaled eccentricities of a particular society are not only the scent of my lemon-verbena. fundamental to thedevelopmentof personality, but may In such surroundings slipped away my last provide also the raw material of creativity should a moments of peace and happiness. sensitive talent be among its youth. (Molloy, p.93) It is over fifty years since Beckett's writing was first published, and time has taken a dismal toll on thecity he Foxrock station, once the focal point of Beckett's wrote of with such affection. Even the surroundina childhood village no longer exists: landscape of mountain and sea has been altered. ~o'l The entire scene, the hills, the plain, the called city planners haveseen fit to fill inmuchof Dublin racecourse with its miles and milesof white rails and Bay and /[.they have their way will continue to destroy three red stands, the pretty little wayside station.

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