Day Trip in Donegal by Derek Mahon

We reached the sea in early afternoon,
climbed stiffly out; there were things to be done,
clothes to be picked up, friends to be seen.
As ever, the nearby hills were a deeper green
than anywhere in the world, and the grave
grey of the sea the grimmer in that enclave.

Down at the pier the boats gave up their catch,
a squirming glimmer of gills. They fetch
ten times as much in the city as there,
and still the fish come in year after year —
herring and mackerel, flopping about the deck
in attitudes of agony and heartbreak.

We left at eight, drove back the way we came,
the sea receding down each muddy lane.
Around midnight we changed down into suburbs
sunk in a sleep no gale-force wind disturbs.
The time of year had left its mark
on frosty pavements glistening in the dark.

Give me a ring, goodnight, and so to bed . . .
That night the slow sea washed against my head,
performing its immeasurable erosions —
spilling into the skull, marbling the stones
that spine the very harbour wall,
muttering its threat to villages of landfall.

At dawn I was alone far out at sea
without skill or reassurance — nobody
to show me how, no promise of rescue —
cursing my constant failure to take due
forethought for this; contriving vain
overtures to the vindictive wind and rain.

Theme(s)

• Isolation
• Helplessness
• Mental health
• Political

Poetic Techniques

• Assonance
• Alliteration
• Personification
• Sibilance
• Metaphor
• Pathetic fallacy

Rhyme + Structure

• 5 stanzas
• 30 lines
• each stanza ends with a rhyming couplet

Tone + Mood

• Initially starts on a hopeful note but then progressively darker/bleaker

Imagery

• Fish flopping on the ships deck
• The spine of harbor wall
• Natural mountainous landscape

Symbolism

• Fish dying, like the poet is a fish out of water - alienation (Protestant in Republic)

Quotes

• “and the grave / grey of the sea the grimmer in that enclave”
• “a squirming glimmer of gills”
• “spilling into the skull, marbling the stones”
• “contriving vain / overtures to the vindictive wind and rain”