View from the Big Hills

Over the past few months I’ve been carrying out some further research about the great artist and Theosophist, Art O'Murnaghan. As readers will know from my earlier post on him, the trip has taken me down some odd paths that at times appear strange bedfellows – WB Yeats, The Society of the Inner Light, Ella Young, Irish Nationalism, Sara Allgood, Theosophy, Irish Drama, Dion Fortune and Philadelphian whiskey maker, Joseph McGarrity . In these searches I was delighted to come across a 1946 book, All for Hecuba, by Anglo-Irish dramatist and actor, Micheál Mac Liammóir .  A photograph of the book's cover is shown below. In his autobiography Mac Liammóir provides a captivating description of Art acting in Denis Johnston’s play The Old Lady Says No . Art O’Murnaghan wielded the drumsticks with untiring devotion  and a rapt expression like a druid at some sacred rite. He was an elderly saint who worshipped Angus and Lu and the ancient  gods of  Ireland...

I only met Kathleen Raine once, shortly before she died. Even as an old person towards the latter stage of her life she carried a strong inner fire in her eyes. Beneath this wonderful old lady was an Initiate of Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light. A great critic, poet and writer, she did much to illuminate our understanding and appreciation of the works and lives of such giants as William Blake and W.B. Yeats. She was truly passionate about and very much influenced by both these earlier poets. The influence of Plotinus and a deep vein of Neo-Platonism also ran through her work. Born in London at the start of the 20th Century, where she grew up, as a young adult she drifted rather erratically from job to job. Through one of these later jobs she chanced upon a meeting with a relative of the great Indian mystic Rama Coomaraswamy Tambimuttu, who invited her to contribute her poetry to his new magazine, "Poetry London". Getting involved in that magazine, she ve...