Time Machine

I wrote about the Stillorgan Obelisk before, some months after joining Blipfoto in 2007. It was a feature of my boyhood, pricking the sky at the rim of nearby suburban fields, notching our local horizon in the way that a church spire might. As the big fields (remnants themselves of a different kind of 'modern' agriculture) succumbed to housing estates, the obelisk remained, a metronome for stopped time.

It was at a remove even as I was growing up, being within the grounds of a local monastery, St. Agustan's. But it was easy then to tramp the fields and hop over the relatively low wall, and at night there was no one about to care whether a few lads climbed the steep stone steps over the 'rustic' base and sat for an hour or so within that oddly privileged little room under the tower, with its four 'Egyptian' doorways looking out over the suburban trees and fields. I had no concept then of the history of the original grounds, Lord and Lady Allen's vast estate (with requisite Deer Park) galloping all the way down to Blackrock and the sea. Apparently Dean Swift paid a visit.

The obelisk is now both more and less accessible, being within the grounds of a newish suburb. Unlike those who need to apply novelistic skills in their appellations (attaching fictional groves, woods, forests, dales, etc.), the developers of Obelisk Park must have latched onto this feature with some relief. I wonder if its possible looming litigiousness occurred to them then. In any case, some years ago they encircled it with a fairly high iron fence, presumably for fear of lawsuits from parents of adventurous toddlers, etc. Scaling such a thing was a bit of a challenge, especially since my back went just a few days ago (but is thankfully much better now, or the expedition would have proved impossible). More helpfully, there are now steel bannisters to protect against falling off the steps.

Strange to look into, and through, that vacant space that held our adolescent breaths for a moment. Did I ever climb into it during the daytime? I don't recall doing so, so this might be the first time I noticed the solid, sun-dialing shadows. Funny to think of a 'folly', a kind of foppish architectural flourish, outlasting the great house with its sprawling demesne, effortlessly threading centuries, so that one can easily fancy time speeding up and swirling around it, woods (and deer) fainting into broad rough fields then pasture, shrinking rapidly to a green patch in the chequerwork of roads and fields then entirely vanishing into the grey zone. And from such a well-masoned time machine, it's also possible to imagine the trim little roofs and gardens collapsing into nettles and rust-eaten four by fours, the cats and dogs gone feral and moon-eyed, glinting from the thickening trunks of copses, the woods thick as broccoli, the cathedral forests.