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Antrim Guardian, Being young, Belfast, British Army, Family, Funerals, IRA, Loughinisland, Memoir, News Travels by Yvonne Watterson, Northern Ireland, Punishment, Sectarianism, The Good Friday Agreement, The Troubles, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, Themes of Childhood, UVF
loughinisland lingers . . .
To forget them would be a second death. I don’t think I am responsible for their first death. But I can be responsible, if I am not careful, in the second death.” ~ ELIE WIESEL Yes. It is important. To bear witness. To say their names. I was recently contacted by Colm Smyth who survived the heartless attack on 16…
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Anahorish, Anahorish, Antrim, Arizona, Bellaghy, Borders, British Army, Broagh, Castledawson, Dennis O'Driscoll, Fosterling, From the Republic of Conscience, grandmother, IRA, Language matters, Loss, Love, Memoir, Memoir, Memory, Mother Daughter Relationship, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Personal Helicon, Poetry, Politics, Sectarianism, The Good Friday Agreement, The Peace Process, The Troubles, Tony Parker, Writing
back to Anahorish ~ Seamus Heaney’s ‘first hill in the world’
Our poet, Seamus Heaney, will be buried in Bellaghy tomorrow evening, his body brought home from Dublin to rest next to the grave of his little brother, Christopher, whom many of us know from “Mid-Term Break,” a poem now learned by heart by Irish children in schools North or South of the border. The first time, I heard Mid-Term Break, was…
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Birthdays, bombing, IRA, John Hewitt, Loughinisland, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Omagh, Peace, Sectarianism, The Good Friday Agreement, The Peace Process, The Troubles, Themes of childhood, UVF, W.B. Yeats
omagh – this is our life
In the summer of 1998, I took my new baby daughter home to Northern Ireland, my lovely, tragic Northern Ireland. It was my mother’s sixtieth birthday, and between my father, my brother, and a handful of relatives who could keep a secret (an impressive trait in rural County Derry) we planned a “This is Your Life” style surprise. It was delicious, knowing…
