EXPLORING


The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush


This poem is written in blank verse and contains two uneven stanzas. Like many  – often an ordinary, almost banal, location. His unique perspective and keen eye for detail elevates the poem into a subtle but powerful commentary on the political realities of Ireland. The poem was published in 1979 at a time when public discourse  loyalists and nationalists in Northern Ireland. This was an era when the Troubles were reaching their peak. Yet, the poem makes no explicit reference to this. Instead,  moment and conveys the impression of expectation felt in a sleepy seaside town, just waking up after the winter, but before the quiet is banished by the summer tourist season. The themes of the poem include the vivid sense of place and the poet’s commentary on what he sees as a cautious air of optimism in contemporary Irish political discourse.


A sense of nature’s benevolence is created by the euphonious (pleasant-sounding) sibilance in the opening stanza: ‘spring/ softening the sharp air of the coast’. This is a place that has known harsh winter storms, but now spring is warming the town and softening the air. There is a sense of optimism for what the future will bring. The word ‘invasion’ is in inverted commas to highlight how locals may humorously  more sinister implications of ‘invasion’ linger in a poem set on an island that has experienced its fair share of invasions. There is a sense that those in the town have just time enough after winter to catch their breath before this ‘invasion’ arrives. Today, we are told, the place is ‘gentle and almost hospitable’ and it is ‘as it might have been’ Mahon chooses not to complete the idea. The town is not yet hospitable, it is only almost hospitable. Is it just that the weather is not quite as welcoming as it soon will be, or is there some other reason (such as the background anxiety caused by  an interpretation may imply that optimism for a lasting peace may still be fragile. An alternative interpretation may be that the town is simply as welcoming now as it might have been in the past.


The poet describes various scenes that take place. A girl ‘strides past the Northern Counties Hotel’ The shop doors along the street stand open, implying the town is readying itself and looking forward to the tourist season. A humorous image is created by the ‘window-shopping’. An ‘old wolfhound’ lies sleeping in the sun. In Irish legends, wolfhounds are often associated with warfare and violence. Perhaps there is a subtle reference here: a sleeping wolfhound might be peaceful, but he can always be woken. Alternatively, perhaps an ‘old’ wolfhound’s 


LEAVING CERTIFICATE HIGHER LEVEL 345


Derek Mahon


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