ëOn Ballycastle Beachí is comparable with the earlier poem,
ëSmokeí, in its refusal of any firm ground on which to locate the
poetic speaker. The poem is dedicated to the speakerís father and
opens with images of the sea, the ëflow of lifeí, fluidity of meaning
and identities:
If I found you wandering round the edge
Of a French-born sea, when children
Should be taken in by their parents,
I would read these words to you,
Like a ship coming in to harbour,
As meaningless and full of meaning
As the homeless flow of life
From room to homesick room.^28The ëwanderingí in the poem is accompanied with images of home-
sickness and endless travelling through the ëflow of lifeí, whereby it is
the ëwordsí that provide some kind of ëharbourí for the ëshipí out at
sea. There is a sense of indeterminate place in the poem, and it is
worth remembering that although the poem is located in a named
place, there are a number of Ballycastles in Ireland.^29 Whereas
Heaney, Paulin and Muldoon, often take on the voice and point of
view of a male speaker, McGuckianís poetry is less determinate and
the identity of the poetic speaker is uncertain. The poem can be read
as a parent speaking to a child or, as a child who, like Cordelia, comes
from France to talk to her aging father. Identifying the poetic speaker
who is unidentifiable becomes merely an attempt at finding an
interpretative line from which to view the poem and which the poem
resists.
The poem can be viewed as an inverse writing of Yeatsís ëA
Prayer For My Daughterí (1921). Attempting to locate the poem
within a tradition Clair Wills has also made connections between the
poem and Yeatsís play On Baileís Strand (1904). In this play, Bally-
castle Beach is the most northern beach of County Antrim where the
seemingly childless Cuchulain kills his son who has sailed to Ireland
thereby ensuring his inheritance will be broken up. Wills notices how,
28 McGuckian, ëOn Ballycastle Beachí, On Ballycastle Beach (Meath: Gallery,
1988, 1995), pp.61ñ2.
29 Docherty, ëPostmodern McGuckianí, p.208.