A slow burner

TheLastStraw: Posterity will decide whether this newspaper's 16-page supplement to mark the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising was justified.

Some people may argue that the stated aims of the signatories ("to return, insofar as possible, to that lived reality of the Rising," as Fintan O'Toole wrote) could have been achieved by other means. No one, however, can doubt the bravery and idealism of those who took part.

I was among the gradualists who believed we should hold off for the 100th anniversary before going big. No doubt that's why I wasn't invited to get involved, although I knew for months that something like this was planned. As Yeats said, I have met them at close of day, coming with vivid faces from counter or desk among grey 18th-century houses (we're moving to a new building in Tara St soon, and not before time). Anyone could see they were up to something.

THE MAP ON page 16 of the supplement showed us the extraordinary extent of the British empire at its height. The sun never set on it then, as everyone knows. But the death of a giant tortoise in a Calcutta zoo last week put the empire in perspective.

In case you missed the story, the tortoise's name was Adwaita - meaning "the one and only". And the name was well-earned, if claims that he was 250 years old are accurate. Giant tortoises are extremely long-lived. Yet, among those documented, the current record is held by a sprightly 176-year-old called Harriet, still resident in Australia. The confusion with Adwaita is that he only came to the Calcutta zoo in middle age. He arrived there as recently as 1875, in fact. But records suggest he was already more than a century old then and that he had once been the pet of Lord Robert Clive - "Clive of India" - who established British supremacy on the sub-continent before committing suicide in 1774. Zoo officials are determined to prove the tortoise's age by carbon-dating his shell.

This column has previously featured the story of Vonolel, a horse and war hero buried in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, who was decorated by Queen Victoria for involvement in actions including the epic march to Kandahar (1880), and who now lies under a tombstone with a poetic epitaph. Dogs, pigeons and other animals have also been honoured for services in time of war. But there is no record I know of Adwaita - or any other giant tortoise - being pressed into military duty, despite the armour with which they come equipped. No doubt their lack of pace prejudiced the British army against them. I suppose being led into battle by a tortoise would rob you of the element of surprise. And granted that the snub was probably lost on Adwaita, as was most of the past two-and-a-half centuries. But you don't have to be overly anthropomorphist to feel grim satisfaction on his behalf that he lived to see the sun set on the empire, having also seen it rise. It's the tortoise-and-hare story, if ever you heard it.

STILL ON REMARKABLE animals, I'd like to thank several correspondents for writing to me with tips on how to deal with the shirt-eating, trap-defying rodent whose adventures in my kitchen were described here recently under the headline "No Match for a Mouse". Readers may recall that a sub-plot of the column involved a US news story concerning a mouse that committed arson on his former home. In light of which (no pun intended) I suggested I would be hiding the matches until our fugitive was finally caught.

Imagine my surprise to receive an e-mail from Denis Collins, Wexford, with a poem by American writer Billy Collins (no relation), which I cannot but quote here in full. It's called The Country:

"I wondered about you/When you told me never to leave/A box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches/Lying around the house, because the mice/Might get into them and start a fire. But your face was absolutely straight/When you twisted the lid down on the round tin/Where the Matches, you said, are always stowed.

"Who could sleep that night? Who could whisk away the thought/Of the one unlikely mouse/Padding along a cold water pipe/Behind the floral wallpaper/Gripping a single wooden match/Between the needles of his teeth?/Who could not see him rounding a corner/The blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam/The sudden flare, and the creature/For one bright, shining moment/Suddenly thrust ahead of his time/Now a fire starter, now a torchbearer/In a forgotten ritual, little brown druid/Illuminating some ancient night.

"Who could fail to notice/Lit up in the blazing insulation/The tiny looks of wonderment on the faces/Of his fellow mice, one-time inhabitants/Of what was once your house in the country?"