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| Patrick Pearse from Google Images |
Walking through the book section of a supermarket in far off Jeddah once I picked a book off the shelves and opened it to a poem of Patrick Pearse, and it was one of those moments and never having read him before I think my first reaction was could they not see it coming. Pearse almost wrote it up before it happened and it is something that is not often commented on. Others like W.B. Yeats, that play of mine send out, is another question and his poems were part of the groundwork for sure, but I suppose many of them played their part in that minority of a minority. The idea that poetry makes nothing happen was not something Ó Shaughnessy (1844-1881) had in mind when he wrote "Ode" One man with a dream at, pleasure, shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song's measure, Can trample an empire down. And worth giving a read if you've got a few minutes free.. Don't march on Moscow and don't annoy poets is probably good advice. All the parts were in place for an uprising by 1916 but Pearse was probably the key to it and without him few would remember.
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