The subtitle to A Sheepdog Named Oscar says this is a book about Love and Companionship in Rural Ireland. It goes beyond “Love and Companionship,” however, as obviously implicit to any love, and indeed companionship, is loss, its unhappy bedfellow. Love, inevitably, hurts. Peaks and troughs. Sorrow and joy.
Central to the dichotomy depicted here is an exploration of the proverbial connection between man and his canine ‘best friend’. In this case, the endearing bond between author (and Cassandra Voices contributor) Dara Waldron, a lecturer in Critical and Contextual Studies at Limerick School of Art and Design, husband and father, grieving his own father – who has just died in a car accident – and Oscar, a “sheepdog” or collie rescued from an abandoned farm.
We soon learn that Oscar is coming to terms with his own trauma that inhibits the expression of natural inclinations. This leads Waldron to conclude: ‘[m]aybe, as the cliché went, a dog’s personality mirrored that of its master.’
The book delves deeply into the nature and origin of so-called sheepdogs – or collies as they are often referred to as. ‘Sheepdog aesthetics’ Waldron writes ‘are defined by the bending back of a prey drive as a type of symbiosis: transforming the kill – via the intervention of humankind – into care.’
He opines, however, that the breed now signals ‘an unhealthy attachment to the past,’ after the golden era of the long-running BBC series ‘One Man and his Dog.’ Sadly: ‘[s]o many collies were returned to the dog pounds for rehoming because an owner who had not done their research was put off by the dog following them around the house, staring at them.’
We also find a close engagement with the author’s domestic environs near Glenstal Abbey along the Limerick-Tipperary border, with which he became particularly acquainted during the dark days of a seemingly interminable lockdown in Ireland: ‘Covid was long and monotonous, one day lurched into the next and the world began to turn in upon itself.’
Narrative Arc
A narrative arc can be identified in the cathartic healing of both the author and Oscar. Waldron soon connects Oscar’s petrified response to the presence of cattle to an inability or unwillingness to bark. The eventual resolution of Oscar’s speech impediment, arising from ‘out of the abyss,’ might draw a tear from even the most hardened dog-loather: ‘The bark was a mirror held up to a soul that seemed to resonate between us, a beating drum that sounded out the silence I associated with shared trauma.’
Dara’s healing journey runs in parallel although on a more tangential, and even supernatural, plain. Suffice it to say, his faithful hound plays an essential, supportive role. Thus, Dara finds ‘something of my father’s ethereal presence in his being.’ Besides coming to terms with the bereavement, Dara must also contend with his initially hesitant affection for Oscar that he traces to a 1980s T.V. advert warning about rabid dogs.
The book weaves diverse scholarship within this arc. Thus, we encounter allusions to fine art – especially Bruegel’s humanistic masterpiece ‘The Hunters In the Snow’; unsurprisingly cinema – principally Tarkovsky’s Mirror. Moreover, the cadence of the book’s title ‘A Sheepdog Named Oscar’ bears, a presumably unconscious, resemblance to the American Southern Gothic drama film and play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ by Tennessee Williams!
There are also literary references including Olga Tokarczuk’s meditation on the suffering of animals at the hands of hunters in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead; scientific engagement, with Oscar’s symbiotic inclinations being compared to those of a lichen, and Rupert Sheldrake’s understanding of a telepathic connection between physical space and the feeling of comfort and safety associated with home; along with Roger Scruton’s philosophical musings on inter-species relations, and the mytho-philosophy of John Moriarty.
A soundtrack resonates through the book, which includes Neil Young’s ‘On the Beach’: “I need a crowd of people but I can’t face them day to day”; U2’s ‘Running to Stand Still’ – a song ‘for anyone who feels trapped in an impossible circumstance by overwhelming responsibility’; and Bob Dylan’s ‘Shelter from the Storm,’ which Waldron describes as ‘a furtive insight into the depths of the human condition.’
Their Loss..
An undisclosed feature of the book’s love-loss dichotomy is the distinct absence of love shown to the author when he first attempted to find an Irish publisher. He eventually found a U.S. one, whereupon it became a New York Times bestseller.
Dara Waldron wouldn’t be the first Irish writer to make it abroad before being favourably received at home. No doubt some of those publishing houses are regretting the loss of revenue from a book that is now topping the Irish non-fiction charts.
The extent to which the publishing industry in Ireland is a closed shop – above which the sign ‘only Irish Times journos should apply’ seems to be affixed –might be worthy of further exploration.
The reluctance of Irish publishers might be traced to the book’s celebration of rather unfashionable corners of Ireland, beyond the postcard image of cliff-face and raging ocean, or the red brick and hypermodernity of Dublin. Here we find the mid-west region, east Clare and Galway – Tuam especially – and the lesser-celebrated west of Sligo. A helpful map reveals Waldron’s spiritual homeland that stretches from the Silvermines to Enniscrone, as he evokes: ‘Shifting planes of landscape, twisting roads and the swift move from green to bog.’
Apart from dog lovers, it is a book that will appeal to anyone grieving a parent. Waldron explores the rituals that play such an important role: ‘There is an exhilaration and a customary need to take control, to shape the mourning into something the dead would approve of, as if they are still there in some form, watching over the proceedings.’
We also find an unapologetic nostalgia for an older Ireland. Waldron harks back to a time when ‘dogs were allowed to wander freely, unbeknownst to their owners with the kind of independence that often saw them take off for days, to then return hungry. Oscar, the trusty hound, becomes a portal into his imagination, renewing his ‘vision of Ireland.’
The Covid Experience
In particular, the final chapter engages with the excruciating Covid-lockdown experience in Ireland with a frankness few books in the mainstream have done so far. The author speaks of a sense of despair felt by many of us forced to suppress our socialising instincts:
The lockdown went on and on, and the lack of a proper horizon to give life its spontaneous oomph began to impact everyone even more. There was no real goal; no sense of what lay beyond. Life was just a slow drift into the future with nothing to strive for.
Furthermore, repetition ‘made each day a monotonous simulation of the one before. Only so many off-the-cuff decisions can be taken away before a numbness akin to grief takes over.’
At least Dara had Oscar’s company and constant demand for exercise to keep him on an even keel throughout. Sadly, others were not so lucky.
A Sheepdog Named Oscar is now available as an audio book.
Feature Image and first image in the text thanks to Dara Waldron.
