An island of trees – An Irishman’s Diary about war children and the roots of Van Morrison

Belated congratulations to Van Morrison on his big birthday. Indeed, congratulations to all the “war children” born around this time 70 years ago when, as the man himself put it, “All the soldiers came marching home/Love looks in their eye.”

I’ll come back to Van in a moment. But speaking of war children, and love looks, I’ve had a charming email on foot of last week’s column (August 26th) about German bombings of Ireland, accidental or otherwise, during the second World War.

It’s from Phil Murphy, a daughter of Patrick Carroll, the lucky man who was standing at his gate in the south Dublin suburb of Sandycove one Friday night in 1940 when, as I mentioned, a bomb dropped 10 yards away and blew a massive crater out of the road, much of which landed on him.

All right, that part wasn’t very lucky. The lucky bit was that he survived, with only minor injuries, so that when he was in hospital later, his main concern was for his bicycle, which he’d been holding at the time.

Neighbour

Another potential worry, Phil tells me, is that he was supposed to be on the way to meet his date and future wife (Phil’s mother), who was waiting at a bus stop in Dalkey and feared he’d stood her up. When a neighbour greeted her next morning with the immortal words “I heard a bomb fell on your Paddy”, she replied that it was lucky for him he had a “good excuse”.

Nowadays, Paddy would have just texted the news (“Hit by bomb – talk later”). Then he’d have bought a Lotto ticket. But maybe he won the lottery anyway. His bike survived. He got the girl. And he lived a very long life that ended only in 2011, when he was in his 90s.

Mystical road

On a slightly sadder note, and getting back to Van, I didn’t make it up to his birthday concerts on Cyprus Avenue on Monday, much as I’d love to have done. In fact, concerts aside, I’m long overdue a pilgrimage to that mystical road, from which he drew so much inspiration.

But in the meantime, even though it is one of the most famous thoroughfares in Ireland and I must have read its name a thousand times, I’ve found myself surprised to notice that it’s spelt as in the Mediterranean country and not, as I’ve always seen it mentally, as in the tree.

It is, after all, renowned for its forestry. In the song of the same name, Van refers to it as “the avenue of trees”. And I’m indebted to a fine essay on the subject by BBC broadcaster Stuart Bailie (see digwithit.com) for the information that there are no fewer than 85 trees lining it, an arboreal density unparalleled in Belfast.

Local folkore

On the other hand, apparently, they’re not cypresses. Bailie mentions only that they include “Corsican pine, lime, beech, sycamore, and maple”. But even so, like me, he wonders if the street really was named for “empire”, or if it was meant to be Cypress Avenue and somebody somewhere misspelt it.

There may be a nearby precedent, he adds, in Sagiemore Gardens: “Local folklore says this was supposed to read Sycamore, but a rural worker from the building firm was sent to the Land Registry office and his pronunciation was spelt phonetically.”

And then there’s the old mill near where Van grew up, which I don’t think he ever mentioned in song, although it deserves one. It’s called the “Owen O’Cork”. A very plausible name, you’d think, because we all know an Owen from Cork. But this one, at least, is a phantom, arising from the Belfast rendering of Amhainn na Choirce (“River of the Oats”).

I used to suspect that the long-running mystery over the title of another Morrison masterpiece (which also begins on Cypress Avenue) was due to similar issues arising from the Belfast accent.

Working title

My theory was that although he’s clearly singing about Madame “Joy” in the song, somebody in New York thought it sounded like Madame “George”, and was afraid to ask. Then, what was supposed to be a working title got printed somewhere and it was too late to change.

Of course I accept Van’s own explanation – that he sang it as “Joy” and wrote it as “George”, and that he doesn’t know why. Mind you, I also notice that his song about “war children” is called “Wild Children” on the record. But since it’s partly about the anti-heroes his generation grew up admiring, there may be a certain logic in that.

@FrankmcnallyIT