Want to know about furze? Find all you could want in FURZE: a Survey of its History and Uses in Ireland by A.T. Lucas. This detailed and fascinating book was published by An Cumann le Béaloideas Éirinn (The Folklore of Ireland Society) in 1960. More than 200 pages of information and analysis.
My thanks, once again to Róise Ní Bhaoill for telling me about this book.
Continue reading Gorse, Whin, Furze 5 – Names – a shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots English
Two contemporary poems and some fantastic music from this album –
In Gorse Blog 2 we met ‘The Blackbird of Belfast Loch / Lon Dubh Loch Lao’. Mary Shannon’s poem ‘Syllables Rising’ was inspired by Ciaran Carson’s translation set to music by Ulaid and Duke Special.
SYLLABLES RISING
Old Irish syllabic verse in the margin
of a ninth century manuscript rises as
the Scribe’s and Poet’s word merge.
Twelve centuries on the Belfast Blackbird’s
dulcet song rises from the verge.
Notes let go, swirl around Malachy’s
medieval wall and as the little bird takes
flight, the lough’s ink-black shallows
are washed with light from sunset’s
stained-glass palette.
Lon dubh loch lao perches for choral
evensong on an altar of sunlit whin:
his sweet tune carries on warm winds.
As dusk falls, inky-feathers fly to nest
as centuries old eye-rings scan the
hedgerows for Pangur Bán.
The poem appears in Poetry in Motion Community anthology 2019/20 compiled from entries to the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing.
Mairéad Breen brings gorse and hawthorn together:
SPRING DELIGHTS
This time of year I fall in love with
the jazz of Maytime blossoms
on gorse and hawthorn bushes
that make a show of rough ditches
hemming lush emerald fields, and
patchworking proud rugged slopes
that lord it over grassy valleys
lazing under warm June sun.
Homely gorse, mostly overlooked,
cinderellas in spring with blazing
clumps of orange-gold blooms that
linger for months, everywhere.
Happy hawthorn’s my favourite –
sprays heavy with pink-white flowers
dangle, dance and tease
and ooze nectar-sweet perfume.
© 2019, Mairead Breen. All rights reserved.
Poets’ Biogs:
Mary Shannon is a member of Wilde Writers◊ creative writing group. She won The Heather Newcombe Poetry Award 2019 and was Runner Up in The Bangor Literary Journal Aspects Festival 2019. Poems published: Community Arts Partnership: 2018/19 and 2019/20; Lagan Navigation Trust: 2018 and 2019. In 1999 she produced and contributed to an anthology of children’s poetry to raise funds for the N.I. Children’s Hospice. She enjoys art and crafts and her painting ‘Flowers For a Lady’ hangs in the Cancer Centre, Belfast City Hospital. @MaryBShannon
Mairéad Breen A native of Co Armagh, Mairéad Breen settled in South Down several decades ago. She’s a peripatetic teacher of young people with special needs and on her daily work journeys is captivated by the golden displays of gorse that enhance and enliven the countryside for much of the year, a reminder of her childhood by Slieve Gullion where whins flourished and blazed on nearly every ditch, field and mountain slope. She began writing poetry relatively recently and writes short stories, flash fiction and memoir. Some of her writing has been published in anthologies and online.
◊Wilde Writers describe themselves as “a reincarnation of two creative writing groups of the wonderful Joan Carberry (tutor, poet, short story writer and all-round legend): the Whiterockers (West Belfast) and the Ballyhackers (East Belfast). These groups go back many years and formed a refuge for (among others) the recently retired. The groups merged when Joan retired and fell under the wide, embracing wing of poet Shelley Tracey and includes dreamy poets, forensic memoirists and short story and flash fiction fiends. Since the lockdown the current group has successfully moved into Google Classroom with the ever-patient Shelley.”
I’m delighted to have won 2nd prize in the Grey Hen Press Poetry Competition with my poem, Autun Cathedral, Magi
I haven’t got a picture of a grey hen so I’ve headed this post with a shot of my favourite cocktail bar, Ora, in Berlin. Continue reading 2nd Prize Grey Hen Press Poetry Competition 2020
Responding through Collaboration – 2nd Blog for Creative COVID-19 blog
This is the second of my blogs for this University of Wales site at the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations.
I’m delighted to have 2 poems in the new anthology: ‘North Star: short stories and poetry by female Northern Irish writers’ released on 4th June 2020.
With 45 contributors, the book’s six sections reflect the counties of Northern Ireland. It is currently number 1 in new and hot releases coming soon on Amazon within anthologies and number 5 in Women’s short stories out of 1,000 titles listed in that genre.
In the Tyrone section is my poem ‘Ballycastle Granny: her husband, Thomas Graham of Gortin’. This won Joint 3rd Prize in the Almost Dancing Poetry Competition and Heather Newcombe Award 2019 organised by Ballycastle Writers’ Group.
My grandfather lived in Gortin where he worked with his brother, John Graham in their saddlery business. John’s his wife, Letitia ran the Post Office.
My poem in the Antrim section is ‘The Scottish Referendum: A View from Carraig Uisneach’. This is set on Ballycastle Beach. It’s about the relationship between this north-eastern area of Ireland with Scotland.
This anthology is unique among collections by Northern Irish women in its dynamically wide embrace of writing talent.
Conceived and produced during lockdown, the North Star anthology comes from women’s writing collective, Women Aloud NI.
Chairwoman, Angeline King Kelly, whose idea it was, says: “The submission process for North Star was open to WANI’s 165 members, without selection. Every woman has a story to tell. Many of the most fascinating stories from Northern Ireland are locked within the minds of people who do not perceive themselves as storytellers or writers. I believe we have opened a door to those people, in addition to nurturing the talent of some of the most respected writers in the country.”
‘North Star’ is available to buy in hardback, paperback, and kindle edition on Amazon. The Collection is also available to buy in local bookshops such as No Alibis and The Secret Bookshelf.
Gorse (in Irish. ‘aitinn’) in some Irish music.
My thanks once again to writer and folklorist, Róise Ní Bhaoill for these links. She tells me she finds gorse referred to in Irish more in songs than in poetry. The three examples here are an absolute treat.
This wonderful tune will set your heart racing.
Seán Ó Riada, “Cnocáin Aitinn Liatroma” – The Whinny Hills of Liatrom
Continue reading Gorse, Whin, Furze 3 – a shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots & English
My first blog on gorse ( see end of this post) gave rise to some lovely reactions. I went looking for more gorse-related poetry in Irish and Róise Ní Bhaoill, writer, editor and folklorist, gave me such a generous response that her material will supply more than one blog. I am very grateful indeed.
I had referenced the ancient Irish poem commonly known as ‘The Blackbird of Belfast Lough’ so Róise draws our attention to some thoughts from a talk of 2012 by the late Aodán Mac Póilin, formerly Director of the Ultach Trust where he and Róise were colleagues.
“I’d like to give you a taste of the culture of that thousand-year period. I’ll start with a tiny little 9th century poem set on the shores of Belfast Lough, which at that time was called Loch Lao.
Int én bec fo-cheird faíd
ro léic feit ós loch laíg
do rinn guip lon do chraíb
glanbuidi: charnbuidi Continue reading Gorse, Whin, Furze 2 – more shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots & English
I’ve been delighted to contribute the first of two blogs to the Creative COVID19 Blog Site of the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations at the University of South Wales.
This site pulls together research and information about a wide range of responses to the constrictions experienced in many fields of creativity: Theatre, Screen Industries, Public Service Broadcasting, Tourism and other areas.
And it hosts also the first Screen Industries Census for the Cardiff Capital region. I am a fan of counting things in the media sector because otherwise policy and practice develop in an ill-informed vaccuum.
I’ve written about Creative Writing in Lockdown – Writing about Place.
I am unable to get to the place I undertook to write about for a prose and poetry work for which I have received a SIAP Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland this year. A book about the performance of culture in Wales has helped me get my head around how to keep my writing on track: Prof. Lisa Lewis’s ‘Performing Wales’.
Recently I had a poem about gorse on the Pendemic.ie site which describes itself as, ‘Not a literary magazine for ordinary times, but journaling the extraordinary.’ in these COVID-19 times. My poem describes the gorse that flowers copiously in Ireland in Spring.
I had many responses on Twitter, sharing a love of gorse and of poetry inspired by it, old and new. I’d like to bring some of them together here to share that pleasure further, as a simple record. This is a mere fraction of the gorse-related poetry one might find. Continue reading Gorse, Whin, Furze – a shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots & English
Nedim Türfent, Kurdish-Turkish, journalist
Nedim Türfent is serving an eight-year-and-nine- month prison sentence on trumped-up terrorism charges following an unfair trial, during which scores of witnesses said they had been tortured into testifying against him. He spent almost two years in solitary confinement in harrowing detention conditions. Determined to keep writing, he started composing poetry while detained. (PEN International) Continue reading Poem for Nedim Türfent – PEN International on Poetry Day