Bluebell (hyacinthoides non-scripta) ~ Méaracán
We went walking in a Donegal woodland last spring – Kathryn and I – and were greeted by a vibrant carpet of flowering bluebells. Breath-taking! I like the Irish word méaracán to describe them, although it actually means thimble. I can imagine young children plucking the bluebells and putting a bell on each finger rather like fairy thimbles. Other Irish words for bluebells are cloigíní gorma (little blue bells) and coinnle corra. The latter is difficult to translate as the second word corr has many meanings: anything from tapered to pointed to odd or occasional. Together with the first word, it translates, variously, as tapered or pointed candles, or, by implication, candles that light up in the oddest way or appear at the oddest time (bluebells come and go within a very short period of time).
These paintings are not meant to be botanically accurate in their depictions of bluebells; rather, these are impressions of them in the half-light or dappled light, or even in the darkness of night, spectre-like and phantom-like, radiating and illuminating their blueness.
