{"id":641153,"date":"2026-10-01T02:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T02:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641153\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T02:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T02:02:15","slug":"lise-hand-hilda-moriarty-inspired-raglan-road-so-why-isnt-she-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/641153\/","title":{"rendered":"Lise Hand: Hilda Moriarty inspired \u2018Raglan Road\u2019, so why isn’t she remembered?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Lise Hand<\/p>\n

Journalist-at-large<\/p>\n

EIGHTY YEARS AGO this Saturday, on 3 October 1946, a poem was published in the Irish Press newspaper under the title \u2018Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away\u2019 to no acclaim at all. It was a love poem, an elegiac contemplation of unrequited love sparked by a raven-haired beauty whom the poet had met and befriended two years previously on a picturesque Dublin road lined by elegant red-bricked Victorian houses and graceful trees ablaze with the greens, golds and russets of autumn.<\/p>\n

However, it languished unpublished for almost two decades until it reappeared, slightly reworked and with a new title in Collected Poems in 1964. Moreover, it was printed as a song lyric with the title followed by the tune: \u2018On Raglan Road (Air: The Dawning of the Day\u2019).<\/p>\n

\"on-raglan-road-is-an-irish-song-from-irish-poet-partick-kavanagh-on-the-facade-of-the-bachelor-inn-in-dublin-ireland\"
\n Alamy<\/p>\n

Alamy\n<\/p>\n

Shortly afterwards, its author Patrick Kavanagh approached Luke Kelly of the Dubliners in the Bailey pub \u2013 a famous city centre literary haunt \u2013 and gifted him the song.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the rest is Irish music history. \u2018Raglan Road\u2019 (the \u2018On\u2019 is optional) may have been made famous by The Dubliners, but it\u2019s been covered by multiple artists \u2013 some are obvious, such as Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor, Van Morrison and The Chieftains, Glen Hansard and Damien Dempsey. But it\u2019s also been given a whirl by more unlikely names, including Dire Straits\u2019 Mark Knopfler and Billy Joel.<\/p>\n

And of course the song has long become a staple of every half-decent session in any public or private house across the land. It\u2019s scientifically impossible to spill a pint in a bar during a sing-song and not hit someone giving it soulful welly, with their eyes tightly shut, and a hand held aloft, asking for a bit of ci\u00fanas.<\/p>\n

\"dubliners-irish-folk-music-groupe-1973-after-concert-in-stockholm-member-eamon-campbelljohn-sheahanbarne-mckennasean-cannon-och-patsy-wetchorn\"
\n Raglan Road was made famous by The Dubliners, sung by Luke Kelly. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n

Chances are also that when strollers pass by the life-size bronze statue of Kavanagh on the banks of Dublin\u2019s Grand Canal, it\u2019s often \u2018Raglan Road\u2019 which springs to mind, rather than the more pertinent reference to his famous poem \u2018Canal Bank Walk\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a really lovely piece of work; the artist sits on a bench, arms folded and legs crossed, perhaps contemplating the green waters, or maybe simply meditating on the ever-parlous state of his personal finances.\n<\/p>\n

The woman of the story<\/p>\n

The only thing which could enhance the tableau would be the presence of another sculpted figure at the other end of the bench \u2013 that of Hilda Moriarty.<\/p>\n

Her name will be familiar to some, but by no means all, the people who know off-by-heart the words\/lyrics of \u2018Raglan Road\u2019. For she was Kavanagh\u2019s raven-haired muse who inspired this poem and others, her name changed to \u2018Miriam\u2019 in the original version to disguise the identity of his subject.<\/p>\n

\"the-last-of-the-autumn-colours-on-raglan-road\"<\/p>\n

It was a classic mismatch; she was a clever and strikingly beautiful young woman from an affluent background who was interested in Kavanagh the writer, not the lover. He was an impecunious poet 20 years older who became love struck to the point of stalker-ish obsession, and who was devastated when she married, pouring his grief into verse.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing about Hilda Moriarty \u2013 she was a creative muse, but she was much more besides. When she and Kavanagh met, she was a medical student in UCD; she was also an aspiring actress and went to auditions including a screen test in Hollywood, losing out to Maureen O\u2019Hara. She was a glamorous influencer \u2013 boutiques would send her clothes and jewellery in the hopes that her photograph in the papers would garner publicity for them.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot
\n A letter sent from Kavanagh to Hilda. National Library of Ireland Archive<\/p>\n

National Library of Ireland Archive\n<\/p>\n

She broke Kavanagh\u2019s heart by marrying charismatic Limerickman Donogh O\u2019Malley in 1947, who would become one of the most well known ministers in the Irish government in the late 1960s. She was an active political spouse; when as Education Minister her husband introduced free school education \u2013 a massively consequential move which opened opportunities to generations of Ireland\u2019s young people \u2013 Hilda O\u2019Malley\u2019s progressivism and views on social equality were widely viewed as an important factor.<\/p>\n

After she was left a widow with two children when her husband died suddenly in 1968, she returned to a medical career specialising in psychiatry, and a year later ran for election to the D\u00e1il in Limerick East, losing out by 200 votes. On the day she died in 1991, Taoiseach Charlie Haughey stood up in a parliamentary party meeting and recited \u2018Raglan Road\u2019. Later, one of his audience, Fianna F\u00e1il TD Mary O\u2019Rourke would reflect, \u201cit dawned on me that he may also have been ensnared by her dark hair.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women as window dressing?<\/p>\n

Surely a case could be made that this remarkable woman should be seated on Paddy\u2019s canal bench, in acknowledgement of her influential life. Oh well, never mind. At least we can console ourselves with the marvellous sculpture of Nora Barnacle striding down Dublin\u2019s Nassau Street to commemorate the day in 1904 when James Joyce experienced the coup de coeur which would inspire \u2018Ulysses\u2019, not to mention the fierce and inspiring massive stone tableau on O\u2019Connell Street featuring Maud Gonne, revolutionary muse of WB Yeats, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow feminist\/suffragist political revolutionaries Constance Markievicz, Kathleen Clarke and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, all of whom at one point shared a prison landing in an English jail.<\/p>\n

\"patrick-kavanagh-dublin-ireland\"<\/p>\n

And then there is the eye-catching statue of Speranza, aka Lady Jane Wilde, nationalist poet, activist and advocate for women\u2019s rights. She of course is lounging in Merrion Square park, next to the languid figure of her son, Oscar. And then there is the imposing bronze of Kathleen Lynn, installed for some time now outside the new National Children\u2019s Hospital which was named in honour of the pioneering co-founder of Ireland\u2019s first paediatric hospital, St Ultan\u2019s in 1919. Also, the recent addition of the lovely sculpture of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor just off Grafton Street close to those of musicians Luke Kelly and Phil Lynott, is poignant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"nora-joyce-nora-barnacle-museum-private-collection\"
\n Nora Barnacle. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n

And isn\u2019t it great how we also honour our thankfully still-living inspirational women, such as the indomitable legal titan of civil rights, former Supreme Court justice Catherine McGuinness, placed outside the Four Courts, long a bastion of the patriarchy?<\/p>\n

And doesn\u2019t it make sense that we have two sculpted figures of our first woman President Mary Robinson \u2013 one stands near \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in and the other outside Seanad \u00c9ireann where she fought like a lioness for justice and equality for women? And already excitement is building for the unveiling of the likeness of boxer Katie Taylor outside Croke Park, the place where Ireland\u2019s most lauded athlete ended her glorious career this summer.<\/p>\n

\"visitors-gather-around-the-spire-of-dublin-in-the-city-center-during-a-clear-day-in-springtime\"
\n Dublin’s ‘giant phallus’, The Spire. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n

Except\u2026 none of these monuments to our inspirational women actually exist on the thoroughfares of our capital. Nine years ago, when I first did a headcount for an article, there is one of Constance Markievicz (plus a bust in Stephen\u2019s Green), one of Sisters of Mercy founder Catherine McAuley on Baggot Street, one of Mayoress Margaret Ball (though she shares the plinth with a male relative) outside St Mary\u2019s Pro-Cathedral.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it. Male figures left, right and centre though.<\/p>\n

Telling, isn\u2019t it, that the most high profile figures of women are of a fictional (or at least anonymous) woman Molly Malone on Suffolk Street, the so-called \u2018Tart with the Cart\u2019, and two unnamed women seated with shopping bags on Liffey Street, the \u2018Hags with the Bags\u2019.<\/p>\n

The third, Anna Livia, aka the \u2018Floozie in the Jacuzzi\u2019, was moved from O\u2019Connell Street to make room for the steel spiked phallus, the Spire, which blends into the cityscape akin to a MAGA supporter in a Massachusetts lesbian bar.<\/p>\n

Very telling indeed. And not a-musing at all.<\/p>\n

Lise Hand is a journalist and writer. This column runs every Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lise Hand Journalist-at-large EIGHTY YEARS AGO this Saturday, on 3 October 1946, a poem was published in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33557,93,61,60,272200,29207,238151,229655,387,91463,272201,3187],"class_list":["post-641153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-column","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-songs","tag-irish-life","tag-life-in-2026","tag-life-in-ireland","tag-opinion","tag-patrick-kavanagh","tag-raglan-road","tag-voices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}