Editor
The writer hails from County Antrim and has lived in the desert southwest of the United States for over 20 years. Her blog is her virtual home away from home.
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Aging, An Ulster Twilight, Castledawson, Christmas, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Father Daughter Relationships, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Seamus Heaney, Themes of childhood
Another Ulster Twilight
It is Christmas morning, 1967, in a modest house on Antrim’s Dublin Road. With a big satin bow in her hair, the little girl is the picture of happiness, wrapped up in an outfit her mother knit for the occasion. Santa has left a new bicycle. It is her first, and it is equipped with stabilizers. Stabilizers – her first big word. Even…
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For My Grandfather – on the Centenary of Armistice Day. Dulce et Decorum Est.
My grandfather died on June 22, 1977, a decade before the Enniskillen bombing. Had he been alive on that day, he would have been wearing his pressed suit, with medals and a poppy attached to the lapels, not unlike those pensioners gathered respectfully at the Cenotaph where at 10:43am where, with chilling choreography, an IRA bomb exploded, killing eleven and…
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"Crediting Poetry" - Nobel Lecture 1995, British Army, Dispatch from the Diaspora, IRA, Kingsmill Road Massacre, Northern Ireland, Sectarianism, The Troubles, Themes of Childhood, Tree of Life Synagogue Pittsburgh
“The Music of What Happens” – for Pittsburgh
They say he yelled “All Jews must die,” when he stormed into the Tree of Life Synagogue on the Sabbath in Pittsburgh this morning. Armed with an assault rifle and three hand guns, he slaughtered 11 people within minutes, silencing forever their joyful prayers. I read that when Rabbi Joseph Miller learned of the shooting, not quite a mile away from…
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Getting Romantic About Baseball
I don’t know how it will turn out, but for tonight at least, the Boston Red Sox are ahead in the 2018 World Series, with a two game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Finally meeting for the first time since 1916, this match-up is the stuff of dreams for baseball fans. Somehow, even though I grew up on the other side of the…