‘Kitty’s’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.

16/11/2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

‘Kitty’s’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. Two rounds of bread and butter And a mug of golden tea, Cost us a shiny sixpence. Back in nineteen sixty three. Five songs we got for thruppence, The coin with a dozen sides. And the doggie men from Derry, Filled Harte’s bar on racing […]

#OTD in 1879 – Birth of teacher, barrister, writer, revolutionary and one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion, Pádraig Pearse, in Dublin.

10/11/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

Pádraig Pearse was born in Dublin to an English father (he was a sculptor) and an Irish mother. Pearse became interested in the heritage and history of Ireland at a very early age and joined the Gaelic League when he was 21 years old. The purpose of the league was to promote Irish tradition and […]

#OTD in 1932 – Birth of internationally celebrated Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller, Tommy Makem, in Co Armagh.

04/11/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam. Tommy Makem was an internationally celebrated Irish folk musician, artist, poet and storyteller. He was best known as a member of The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. He played the long-necked 5-string banjo, guitar, tin whistle, and bagpipes, and sang in a distinctive baritone. He was known as […]

#OTD in 1854 – Birth of playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet, Oscar Wilde, in Dublin.

16/10/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

Oscar Wilde was an Irish author, playwright and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death. […]

‘Gullion: Mountain of Steep Slopes’ © John A. Brennan 2015. All Rights Reserved.

13/10/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

‘Gullion: Mountain of Steep Slopes’ © John A. Brennan 2015. All Rights Reserved. They call me Gullion. I am old as time itself, older than the pre-dawn of life, forged in the crucible of a ring of fire, before man existed. Up here the air is pure and fresh and crisp as the frost of […]

‘Silence Of The Stones’ © Joe Canning 2017. All Rights Reserved.

11/10/2018.Reading time 1 minute.

‘Silence Of The Stones’ © Joe Canning 2017. All Rights Reserved. Joe Canning ‘A look at Ireland in verse’ Oh what tales the stones could tell, Of Celtic men on mountain shelves, Of warrior, slave, of serf or early man. What would they say of those that lay, With warrior sword ‘neath Celtic clay, Of […]

‘On Yonder Hillside Sloping’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved.

19/09/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

‘On Yonder Hillside Sloping’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. On yonder hillside sloping, A fallen house I see, Where boiled the blackened saucepan, To peasant family feed. Where once was baked the oaten scone, All dressed with fresh churned butter, Where once they prayed in grateful thanks For the tatties on […]

#OTD in 1845 – Death of revolutionary and writer, Thomas Osborne Davis, in Dublin.

16/09/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

Thomas Osborne Davis was an Irish writer who was the chief organiser of the Young Ireland movement. Thomas Davis was born in the town of Mallow, Co Cork, the son of a Welsh father, a surgeon in the Royal Artillery, and an Irish mother. Through his mother he was descended from the Gaelic noble family […]

10/09/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

‘Chatting to my Mother’ © Joe Canning 2018. All Rights Reserved. Today I shook hands with my dad; in The fresh air, on the outside. For fourteen years he’s looked at me From across a visitor’s table. Today I tasted a small gift of freedom. I walked with my sister outside the walls. […]

#OTD in 1916 – Death of Thomas Michael “Tom” Kettle on the 71st day of the Battle of the Somme.

09/09/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Tom Kettle was a journalist, barrister, writer, poet, soldier, economist and Home Rule politician. As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Tyrone from 1906 to 1910 at Westminster. He joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, then on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 enlisted […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Tag: Poet