This morning I attended Mass at St Catherine’s Dominican Church, said by Fr Tumelty of Dromalane. Yesterday I got Mass in Notre Dame, Paris and the day before at Sacre Coeur, Montmartre. Congregations dwindle everywhere.
Newry News and Irish Fun
This morning I attended Mass at St Catherine’s Dominican Church, said by Fr Tumelty of Dromalane. Yesterday I got Mass in Notre Dame, Paris and the day before at Sacre Coeur, Montmartre. Congregations dwindle everywhere.
For Danny
I blurted out the truth
mindless of the harm
‘He is vital, smart and interested.
He makes me warm
To my subject. So like my son!’
And then I left.
I had won,
but at the cost
Of self-approbation.
I had lost.
A cry for help – silly white lies;
Despised now too in mother’s eyes.
He summoned me to his office, now alone
Mother and delinquent child long gone
‘Said you were ‘picking on him”, with a knowing grin
‘Both mad as hatters! Evil as sin!’
No years of ‘chalk and talk’
and innocent upturned faces
Could prepare me for that walk
The troubled boy of ’84
aching no more.
He refused me leave
to attend the funeral mass
‘Pressed for time, you see!
Understaffed!’
I spoke out then. Too late.
Tore into him
Begged God’s forgiveness
for the hate I bore him.
At the graveside I prayed
perpetual light to shine
On him whose earthly burden
weighed much heavier than mine
Until the lonely stress was raised at last
Through straining rope
hanging from a roof truss.
Last night I marked each hour
the ticking clock’s chime:
I was begging his forgiveness
for all the times
That I was self-obsessed
thoughtless or unkind
For easy victories
when his troubled upturned face
was reading mine.
I pray the Lord his soul and mine to keep
when life is spent
And other sinners too
when they repent.
You’d be up for child cruelty today if they heard you let the wee ones lick the bowl in which the cake ingredients were mixed!
There was a dogfight every time in our house for the opportunity. I’m trying to remember the taste… easy when it contained rich seasoning, ginger or dried fruit.. whatever, we loved it and fought over it. It took mum to brandish the wooden spoon before peace could be restored. We must have felt that wooden spoon in anger more than once, for no lion-tamer’s whip could have been more effective in restraining us!
It had to be wielded too to keep us off the cooling confections. Mum determined a minimum time before the new cake of bread could be cut. We paced like convicts in anticipation.
We like to encourage local talent. Catherine McGrath, of Shore Road, Rostrevor has had the following short poem chosen for publication elsewhere. We wish her the best of luck. I’m sure many a lonely emigrant will shed a quiet tear reading her words!
Catherine McGrath ( age 13)
Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest
And on my cheeks sweet kisses pressed ?
My mother.
On the ninetieth anniversary of the Easter Rising, it may be appropriate to reflect on the words of an earlier patriot, recently referred to by one of our regulars on Discussions – the Protestant patriot Thomas Davis.
Here was I, indulging in a daydream about my darling daughter’s forthcoming wedding, when – skimming through an old newspaper – I came upon this poem. Boy, were my eyes opened?
We publish here a tribute to an old storyteller of long ago.
Padraic O’Conaire, Gaelic Storyteller
by F.R. Higgins (1869-1941)
They’ve paid the last respects in sad tobacco
And silent is this wakehouse in its haze;
They’ve paid the last respects; and now their whiskey
Flings laughing words on mouths of prayer and praise;
And so young couples huddle by the gables.
O let them grope home through the hedgy night –
Alone I’ll mourn my old friend, while the cold dawn
Thins out the holy candlelight.
Respects are paid to one loved by the people;
Ah, was he not – among our mighty poor –
The sudden wealth cast on those pools of darkness,
Those bearing, just, a star’s faint signature;
And so he was to me, close friend, near brother,
Dear Padraic of the wide and sea-cold eyes –
So, lovable, so courteous and noble,
The very West was in his soft replies.
They’ll miss his heavy stick and stride in Wicklow –
His story-talking down Winetavern Street,
Where old men sitting in the wizen daylight
Have kept an edge upon his gentle wit;
While women on the grassy streets of Galway,
Who hearken for his passing – but in vain,
Shall hardly tell his step as shadows vanish
Through archways of forgotten Spain.
Ah, they’ll say, Padraic’s gone again exploring;
But now down glens of brightness, O he’ll find
An alehouse overflowing with wise Gaelic
That’s braced in vigour by the bardic mind,
And there his thoughts shall find their own forefathers –
In minds to whom our heights of race belong,
in crafty men, who ribbed a ship or turned
The secret joinery of song.
Alas, death mars the parchment of his forehead;
And yet for him, I know, the earth is mild –
The windy fidgets of September grasses
Can never tease a mind that loved the wild;
So drink his peace – this grey juice of the barley
Runs with a light that ever pleased his eye –
While old flames nod and gossip on the hearthstone
And only the young winds cry.