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9.11.2013, 9/11, Anything can Happen, Belfast, Billy Collins, Blogging, bombing, British Army, cancer, Diary, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Healing Field Tempe, Loss, Memoir, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Culture, Ordinary Things, Peace, Poetry, Remembering September 11th, Seamus Heaney, September 11, The Peace Process, The Troubles, The Troubles, Themes of Childhood, Writers
The Last Name on the List on the Eleventh of September
I have yet to be disappointed by what happens when my online world collides with its ‘real’ counterpart. Landing on the virtual doorsteps of people in the middle of lives parallel to my own, I have been beautifully blindsided by unexpected coincidences and exchanges of truths that may not otherwise have seen the light of day. In my virtual home, it is easy to pull up a chair and trade ideas and opinions with people I may never meet about why Seamus Heaney still matters; about the beautiful, bruised Northern Ireland that scared me and shaped me; about breast cancer and the pain and of it, and the shiver of fear…
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American Dream, Being young, Belfast, Concerts, Eagles Tour 2018, Glenn Frey, Irish Diaspora, Take It Easy, The Eagles
The Eagles – on a Corner in Phoenix, Arizona.
When I was young, I only liked the Eagles because I knew they had been Linda Ronstadt’s backing vocalists – and I loved Linda Ronstadt. I wanted to be her and therefore learned by heart the lyrics of every song she covered. In my teenage bedroom, I spent hours singing along to her records, dreamy and delusional, telling myself that I was absolutely within her vocal range. Bored and adolescent, I longed to be far away Northern Ireland and its grey skies, from Margaret Thatcher, from politics and parades, from flags and fighting – far away from a country that has “no prairies to slice a big sun at evening.” I wanted…
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in dublin’s fair city . . . edna o’brien
. . . if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal. ~ James Joyce Every April, the Dublin: One City One Book initiative celebrates one book connected with the capital city. Led by Dublin’s public libraries, it encourages everyone to read that book during the month, making print and digital copies available to borrow for free throughout the public library network. To be a contender for this recognition, the book must: have a connection to the city either through the author/s or content of the book lend itself to the organization…
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A Poem for Michael and Christopher, Act Two, Door into the Dark, Postscript, Seamus Heaney, The Underground
Dear Seamus Heaney,
Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit. There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. And so, my fellow graduates, make the world before you a better one by going into it with all boldness. You are up to it and you are fit for it; you deserve it and if you make your own best contribution, the world before you will become a bit more deserving of you. ~ From his remarks to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduates, May 12, 1996 Dear Seamus Heaney, Six years…
