The wicked history of ‘Monto’ spreads itself accommodatingly from the 1860s up to the 1950s. ‘Monto’ was, at one time, so it is claimed, to be the largest redlight district in Europe. It is estimated that there were at times up to 1,600 prostitutes working there. Continue reading
He will not study Famine roads on any map in school.
I discovered those myself much later, Trevelyan’s twisted
dictate, the futile labour of those arteries tapering
into the ether, Continue reading
Telling her that he’d ply her with honeyed words, whilst she tucked in the edges, devour her, she said, consume her, smoothing out the centre with her flat palm, tugging the creases to the corners. Continue reading
She used a blue biro pen and had numbered the pages on small, plain, lined notepaper…I was pleased to see, sometimes, the smudged ring of a teacup or saucer imprinted on the page. I ould see her in the kichen getting a cup of tea as she wrote to me on a Sunday night. Continue reading
It’s not easy to be in love with
a place that has changed so much. Continue reading
While many Irish place names in Australia remain unchanged, especially those of populated areas and permanent geographical features, the names of homesteads are more likely to change. A homestead in Australia is usually a house and pastoral property. Some placename websites separate the homestead from the land, and some call a homestead a ‘station’. Continue reading
We heard you read local poets
McNiece, Larkin, Rodgers. Told us of
Hewitt’s ox and goat metaphor
for Northern Ireland. Continue reading
He tells us that Patrick was a powerful, diligent, and determined man. After reading the Lives of Brigid, you could espouse this forceful but patient woman with the same attributes and above all piety and humility. Continue reading
So, landscape and place and sense of identity or the word in Irish is ‘dúchas’ or heritage are huge influences on what motivates me to write. Continue reading
The old man’s sighs emerged from a deep-felt sorrow as he dipped oars into poetry and myth,
his phrases like sails gliding between uncertain isles before shifting the rudder of his thoughts to old
familiar phrases: ‘sin a dóigh, that’s the way of it’. Continue reading
Tinteán 