That shrill cry was something else, otherworldly. It stirred everything from deep within the recesses of my soul. Oh how I wish I could put that moment and the ensuing emotional deluge into apt words, alas I am no poet! Thankfully, Plath’s words ‘Love set you going like a fat gold watch’, dance twinkle-toed through my mind since then. I got to know him as her belly grew, as the sudden kicks protruded the stomach, and even more as his…
‘How can you tell if someone has run a marathon?….Don’t worry they’ll tell you.’ , is a joke I enjoy and can shamefully admit to. How I got into marathon running, I cannot say. It always held a certain allure for me. Perhaps it’s the photo of my father crossing the finish line in the eighties, pain etched across his brow. Perhaps that penchant to suffer in training drew me to it as it did The Galway Cycle. Either way I’m now…
To say the past week has been eventful in our little island would be an understatement. Amongst all the deluge of NPHET being undermined by ‘Love me’ Leo, a story caught my eye. Many were up in arms about the timing of the new checkpoints, and rightly so. Yet again it seemed those trying their best, in these the most trying of times, were being accosted the most. Those in breach of regulations are more likely to do so…
‘It’d be a great little country if you could roof it’, is a phrase we have become accustomed to on our little island. Surrounded by stunning scenery, yet surrounded by weather that is unpredictable and moody like a teenager, the phrase is easy to comprehend. Yet, for me, this only adds to the charm, at times anyhow. With freedom granted last Monday to travel outside the county we reside in, we hightailed it home to South Kerry like scalded cats….
”We have tested and tasted too much, lover-/Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.’. The opening phrase of one of my favourite Patrick Kavanagh poems. He may have been an auld crank if stories of him ring true, but man could he nail the human condition, and moreover the Irish condition. Advent sees Kavanagh at a critical juncture in his life. He is questioning how far he has come, and what direction he may go from here. He…