In the Dark

One of the consequences of living in a (relatively) small Irish town surrounded by farmland is that every now and again you notice authentic countryside smells. This time of year is often accompanied by the whiff created by the slurry being spread on nearby fields. The farmers typically do this in mid to late September, depending on the weather; it is actually not allowed after 30th September). When I first noticed this sort of pong I thought there was something wrong with the drains, but you get used to it.

Anyway, this made me think of this painting

Of course the manure isn’t spread by hand nowadays. It’s done like this:

(I got this picture from a piece in the Irish Times about slurry as a poetic metaphor.)

This entry was posted on September 9, 2025 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Art, Maynooth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.