Tag: Poet

‘Undiscovered Souls’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.

.Reading time 2 minutes.

‘Undiscovered Souls’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.   In my mind’s eye I see them. Fleeing the accursed land of Érin. The rock roads where hundreds fell; Hunger, consumption and broken hearts.   Mothers, fathers, clawing at a destitute earth, Interring the lost fruits of her womb. A passing exodus, staring, crossing themselves. […]

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‘An Exoneration of Innocents’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. 

.Reading time 3 minutes.

‘An Exoneration of Innocents’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. It was a moment that rewarded patience. A small man of poetry, a President; Respectful to his country’s victims. Scathing he, of the wrongs of zealots. When from a lectern, almost as tall, Addressed a room of baited hearts. Once hard hands now softened […]

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‘Patient Hero’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. 

.Reading time 1 minute.

‘Patient Hero’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.  I speak of Robert Emmet And the words he had to say Before the black hat sent him To an unknown place in clay The words that Gael and hero spoke To those that took his life, To those who broke the heart of Sarah. She […]

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#OTD in 1754 – Birth of Dr. William Drennan in Belfast; physician, poet, educationalist political radical and one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen.

.Reading time 3 minutes.

William Drennan’s poetic output included some powerful and moving pieces. He is chiefly remembered today for “Erin” written in 1800, in which he penned the first reference in print to Ireland as “The Emerald Isle”: “Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile The cause, or the men, of the Emerald Isle.” Drennan came to […]

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#OTD in 1870 – Birth of Eva Gore-Booth, poet, trade unionist and feminist, on the Lissadell Estate in Co Sligo.

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Eva Selina Laura Gore-Booth was an Irish poet and dramatist, and a committed suffragist, social worker and labour activist. She was born at Lissadell House, Co Sligo, the younger sister of Constance Gore-Booth, later known as the Countess Markievicz. Both she and Constance, who later became a prominent Irish revolutionary, reacted against their privileged background […]

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#OTD in 1897 – Oscar Wilde is released from prison and goes to live in France, where he writes his famous poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”.

.Reading time 3 minutes.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Bernevas-Le-Grand or in Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading, after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years’ hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, on Saturday […]

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‘In Memory of My Mother’ by Patrick Kavanagh

.Reading time 1 minute.

‘In Memory of My Mother’ (Patrick Kavanagh) I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the poplars On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday You meet me and you say: ‘Don’t […]

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‘Kathleen Mc Manus’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.

.Reading time 6 minutes.

‘Kathleen Mc Manus’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. Joe Canning ‘ A look at Ireland in verse’ Wandered did I with my knapsack, In the afternoon heat of the day, I’d some miles to go to reach Galway, My flute and my fiddle to play. I practised my reels by the roadside My […]

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‘Love Is’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.

.Reading time 2 minutes.

‘Love Is’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. Love it is a daffodil Love it is a rose Love it is the snowdrop That in the forest grows. Love it is the buttercup Love’s the crocus wild Love it is the living tree. Love’s the gift of life. Love is those we cherish dear […]

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