Pat Boran reads a specially written piece on the meaning of the eclipse on RTÉ Radio 1’s Arena arts programme on 12 August 2026.
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22637001
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The shortest poem I ever wrote (seven words long, a hard day at the office for a poet) was inspired by the lighthouse series of paintings by John Shinnors. Like the beam of a lighthouse, the poem is over in a flash.
Darkness extends
endlessly. Light
is always new.
I suppose I was thinking of the way a lighthouse beam will sweep through the night and, as it were, rescues things from darkness or, if you prefer, brings things back to the light — like an echo of the way the sun passes over one small part of the planet at a time, giving us hours, days, seasons and, by extension, religion, history, culture…
“Darkness extends endlessly.” It’s obvious, maybe, but it’s also something we don’t like to think too much about, how the universe is almost entirely empty with only, here and there, tiny pinpricks of light in the form of distant stars, of which our own sun is just one small, insignificant part — insignificant, that is, except to us.
For us the sun is, quite literally, everything. No wonder we plan our lives around it. From the coronation of kings and queens to the most auspicious times to sow and reap. Even when not stretched out in parks or on beaches, we are sun-worshippers, every bit as much as the sunflowers that strain to follow its progress across the summer sky. The sun, as we’re reminded in the middle of yet another heatwave, is the fire we cannot get too close to, nor live for a second without.
“Darkness extends endlessly. Light is always new.” For all our modern understanding, our ability to predict and arm ourselves with cardboard viewers and refreshments, even a partial eclipse is an experience of a lifetime for many and certain to impress, maybe even to give us, like the best horror movies, a brief atavistic shiver of fear.
So enjoy it. I know I will. But remember, it’s not the darkness but the return of the light that should fill us with awe.