Midnight Anvil

On 31 December at midnight Barney Devlin transmitted by “cellular phone” “twelve blows” on the anvil to his nephew in Alberta Canada. Heaney heard about this, wrote the poem The Forge and later visited Barney’s Forge for a reprise. Barney aged 95 did a reprise for me in the summer of 2014 for my painting of the event.

Heaney passed by the forge many times as a child and looked in, never venturing in, but imagining the activity within and what might be generating the sparks he could sometimes see.

The verses from Midnight Anvil from District & Circle 2006 now hang in the forge and the first verse reads:

If I wasn’t there

When Barney Devlin hammered

The midnight anvil

I can still hear it: twelve blows

Struck for the millennium.

Barney preserved the forge as a private and, as he emphasised, a free admission museum. It is now a stop-off on the Heaney tourist trail attracting visitors from around the world.

Prints are available Home