Ich am of Irlonde, And of the holy londe Of Irlonde. Goode sire, praye ich thee, For of sainte charitee, Com and dance with me In Irlonde. Anon. (14th century) It inspired Yeats, of course. ‘I am of Ireland’ I am of Ireland, And the Holy Land of Ireland, And time runs on,’ cried she. [...]
I became interested in the painter Jackson Pollock through a poet, Frank O’Hara. They were both Americans, and oddly enough, both died in car crashes. Like a former director of this gallery, Thomas MacGreevy, O’Hara was a poet who had a deep and professional interest in painting. Amongst other institutions O’Hara worked for the Museum [...]
The Russian poet Bella Akhmadulina has died. I saw her read once, in the old Project Theatre in Dublin, and was so moved by the way she read her poems in Russian, which reminded me of chanting in a cathedral, that I wrote the following piece, published in my collection The Year of the Knife. [...]
Photo owned by Dan4th (cc) Back in 1992 or 93, I was asked to write a poem to commemorate 139 years of The Christian Brothers School in Gorey. I obliged in the only way I knew how, but of course it wasn’t published. Perhaps it would be now, though it’s far from a masterpiece. Maybe [...]