Scurlogstown Olympiad Haymaking Photos 2015!

Scurlogstown Olympiad Hay Making Photos! 2015

Just the directions?

Trim Castle

Vintage stuff!

A scene in the small field?

A re-enactment of Pearse's oration at the graveside of Ó Donovan Rossa

Matt Leavy

Set Dancers

Some young musical talent.

James Linnane and friend?

Scurlogstown Olympiad Hay-Making Sunday 2015!

Scurlogstown Olympiad Hay-Making Sunday 2015!

Sean Kane, Michael Fahy, Verona Pentony and Eugene Kane

The Olympiad or Haymaking Festival in the Porchfields drew a large crowd on a day of competing interests in the county. The Meath Writers' Circle were out in attendance and a number of people dropped in for a chat as the day progressed. Michael Durkan was recording close by and his CD of local singers and poets should be out by August or September of this year. But it's a great place for vintage cars and tractors and sheaf tossing and just about everything else you can imagine with stalls and amusements and swinging boats and a roll in the hay if you're so inclined or diverted. I managed to catch some of the pageant on the way out and very powerful oration it was and done from memory if I recall. A re-enactment of Pearse at the graveside of Ó Donovan Rossa. Also some great singing and dancing down at the main stage with Matt Leavy there as well, further up. One of the best country and western singers in Ireland you should look him up on youtube sometime. Other musicians there as well and something for every one's interest. 

Strong My Love/Peter Fallon

Strong My Love/Peter Fallon

Picked up a copy of the above in Pallas at the Goldsmith Awards where Peter Fallon was the judge and guest reader. This is his first collection in seven years and is a series of prayers for his daughter and son and for their generation, though there is a second part where~ Snatches of Tibullus pave the way for two extended translations~ (from the cover). Peter Fallon was born in 1951 and grew up on a farm near Kells in County Meath. He founded the Gallery Press in 1970 and his books include News of the World: Selected and New Poems (1998), The Georgics of Virgil (2004, Oxford World's Classics) and The Company of Horses(2007). For anyone interested in Meath poets, any or all of the above would be a must, though his influence through The Gallery Press and his writing extend far beyond that corner of the Royal County he calls home. As he mentions in the acknowledgements  much of the above was finished in the course of a spell at Boston College as Burns Library Visiting Scholar. A member of Aosdána and winner of the Ó Shaughnessy Award, he lives in Loughrew County Meath. The poems are beautifully crafted and rhyming patterns easy to both eye and ear. One for the collection. The website of the Gallery Press: www.gallerypress.com

The Battle of Waterloo!

The Battle of Waterloo!

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on the 18th of June 1815 in what was then part of the Netherlands or today Belgium. Anyway shaky enough on the geography but the Duke himself was from just up the road and as I said before something of a local sense of humour, or maybe the stories are just that; stories! Most of his army was Irish and as for the horses, well we won't go there. A number of excellent articles in the "Times" last Sunday especially from Kevin Myers and Conor Brady on the subject, or implications of. If you can still get your hands on a copy worth it for Myers article alone. I always said there is more history in Meath than most other countries and we're tripping over the great and good and not doing too bad on the other side of the coin either. This is a poem I wrote on the man himself.

From the Wellington Monument

The parish church bells

The Wellington Monument/Trim
From Google Images.

Ringing out

The measure of the day.

A Mass perhaps

The Angelus

Or someone passed

Away.

And everything about

His place

The steady hand

The measured

Pace.

Impatient

Waiting to be off

The columns turned

A moment 

Passed.

Dressed for 

The Phoenix Park

And a good cigar

The woods laid out

The town 

Below.

And eyed it all

The shadows cast

Cold colours

And the world

Away.

Frank Murphy.

Sligo, Leonard Cohen Recites W.B.Yeats, Lissadell House, july 31st , 2010

William Butler Yeats was born on the 13th of June 1865 in Dublin but spent much of his childhood in Sligo. Above Leonard recites a verse of "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz". With thanks to youtube and the guy who loaded.



In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz

The light of evening, Lissadell
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams--

Some vague Utopia--and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
Pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch;
Should the conflagration climb,
Run till all the sages know.
We the great gazebo built,
They convicted us of guilt;
Bid me strike a match and blow.

W. B. Yeats

The Sea/Anthology/ RNLI

The Sea/ Anthology/ RNLI

Book Cover

With Fathers' Day just around the corner (Sunday the 21st of June) a copy of the above would make a delightful present for anyone interested in the sea or anything of a maritime leaning. If interested in purchasing a copy click Here for the publishers or telephone 00353 25 30661. Published by Rebel Poetry in Cork. The fundraising is in aid of the RNLI. So a very good cause and in aid of those who put their lives on the line. There is a Facebook page (the sea) and Paypal link there as well and I'm sure any good bookstore would source a copy.

F.R. Higgins/Wreath Laying Ceremony 2015!

F.R. Higgins/Wreath Laying Ceremony 2015!

Headstone/ Laracor Graveyard Co. Meath.

Willie G. Hodgins of The Meath Writers' Circle was on hand to do the honours yesterday at the annual wreath laying ceremony at the grave of F.R.Higgins in Laracor. This is part of the Scurlogstown Olympiad group and every year as part of the stop off during the High Nellie cycle tour a visit is paid to the grave. F.R.Higgins is one of Meath's best known poets and writers and died in 1941 when some of Ireland's best known literary and political figures were in attendance at the funeral. So if you happen to be passing on your travels, a visit is a must see. Also the old parish church of none other than the great Jonathan Swift of Gulliver's Travels and other pieces. Also not too far up the road is the ancestral home of the old Iron Duke himself and close connections to James Clarence Mangan locally as well. And I could go on there is no end. More history than most countries.  

The Meath Writers' Circle/ June Meeting 2015!

The Meath Writers' Circle/ June Meeting 2015!

About fifteen people turned out for our last meeting in the Trim Castle Hotel on Thursday night and what was a lively discussion on any number of things. Congratulations to Paul Martin on winning a poetry competition on the Deep Underground Poetry site; link to the left, though you may have to load it into Google to find. Worth a visit. Poetry is supposed to make you sit up and take notice and the Deep Underground  site does just that. Other people read some great poems as well and plans for prize giving for the young writers in the Library almost finalised. Today is the wreath laying ceremony at the grave of the poet F.R. Higgins in Laracor churchyard so better get moving. Keep writing! 

Goldsmith Poetry Competition 2015/Photos!

Goldsmith Poetry Competition 2015/Photos.

Longford Flag

Peter Fallon/Gallery Press

Frank Murphy and Bianca Fachel

Pavilion

Bianca Fachel/Brazilian singer/songwriter and Partner

Anne Tully, Frank Murphy and Anne Connolly

Some photos taken at Pallas Longford on Sunday last. Link to songs of Bianca Fachel Here! Also on Youtube!