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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…
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Ajijic, Chapala, Irish Diaspora, Jalisco, James Taylor, Lake Chapala, Mexico, Mexico, Paula Meehan, You're So Vain
Mexico ~ With My Own Ones
“I am the blind woman finding her way home by a map of tune. When the song that is in me is the song I hear from the world I’ll be home. It’s not written down and I don’t remember the words. I know when I hear it I’ll have made it myself. I’ll be home.“ ~ Paula Meehan, Irish poet Vibrant, foreign, and far away, Mexico was once nothing more than a James Taylor song on my first radio. It was too far beyond my reach to present an alternative to the Northern Ireland of my childhood, a grey and divided place, its capital city, a ‘no-go’ area in…
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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
At this moment, bear in mind Omagh.
As we plan to mark the 20th anniversary of the Omagh bombing, I am drawn back to the summer of 1998. A new mother, I had taken my baby daughter back home to Northern Ireland, my lovely, tragic Northern Ireland. Between my father, my brother, and a handful of relatives who could keep a secret (an impressive trait in rural County Derry) we had planned a “This is Your Life” style surprise for my mother’s sixtieth birthday. It was delicious, knowing we had all swallowed the same secret, and that my all-knowing mother was completely in the dark. The Troubles had tainted previous visits home, but this time would be different…
