I was taken aback this week by my reaction to the media coverage of the Normandy Landings and the Tuam babies. I found myself blinking back tears of anger and frustration. Not for the men who died on the beaches nor for the deaths of the children but for our brave new world.

 As the pictures of the great and good on the beaches were splashed across our monitors and angry words of indignation and blame were hurtled in the headlines and across Face Book about the Tuam babies, I began to feel uncomfortable.

 I saw all the great and the good on the beaches and somehow the word ‘glory’ came to mind. All those dead men, not glorious at all. All those torn and lifeless uniforms, not glorious at all. Why were they all there on the 6^th June 2014? To pay respect to the men who died? Or to be seen to pay respect? The latter I think. The media demanded it.

 I first heard Catherine Corless discussing her research into the deaths of the hundreds of children the 27^th May. She was calm, and informative. She wanted to discover their names and raise a plaque for the children to be remembered. It was shocking but I was not shocked. I have lived in Ireland for the last 20 years and sad to say I think I have become inured to the horrible stories of abuse and cruelty metered out by the State, the churches, the institutions and consequently by the communities they served. . But I was shocked by the clamouring voices. Suddenly there were demands for inquiries, and criminal investigations. How, I wondered. Who can be held responsible now?

 Yes, I believe that Truth Commissions and/or inquiries are important. Yes, I believe that we must acknowledge and accept our past, apologise for hurt, killings, abuse and try to understand how to change. But sometimes the wailing, and the blaming the media serves up in turn serves no good purpose.

 In both the Normandy Landings and the Tuam babies, the media was a blunt instrument. It stripped the two events of  the compassion and respect we need to give them. I am a believer in freedom of the press but now I find myself wondering whether we need to look at how the media serves us as a society or more importantly, how we, as leaders and readers, respond to its ever righteous and screeching demands.

 Or maybe, having entered my third age, I am becoming a cantankerous old woman.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

BY WILFRED OWEN

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 

 Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

 And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

 The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

 I am back from Malaga, Nerja, Granada, Sierra Nevada and Alicante. I  made a discovery while driving across the country. In My Fair Lady, the song ‘the rain in spain stays mainly on the ‘plane’ does not refer to an aircraft. It seems Spain is formed of mountains, sea and  plains and the rain stays in the plain. This makes a lot more sense. Even as a child, I could never understand how it stayed on the plane.

Not that I had any rain last week, in the mountains or in the plains. But on the way there, there was tummy turning turbulence on my plane. A child cried out ‘Mummy, make it stop. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.’ Imagine having the desire, fear, freedom and faith to call that out. Anyway, mummy did what was necessary and we all lived.

Conversely, a day after I was home, I discovered that a colleague poet of mine from Galway whom I liked and very much respected died of a sudden heart attack while swimming in the sea in Spain. I was shocked. The day before I had been swimming in the sea near Alicante, and was overwhelmed with the glory and sensuousness of the salt, water, waves. I wrote a draft ditty later that evening. It has no title.

 Waves of water, surf, sand

submerge emerge converge

me

Salt pricks my pores

stains my lips

sea rushes my depths

straddles my hair

lays me out

I am grains of sand

beached.

I danced to the beat of my heart.

It is not worked on. They are words only. I wish they were better.  But they belong to Kevin O’Shea. May he rest in peace.

 From time to time, over the past few months, I have been musing on existentialism. In the mornings, I wake up, lie on my back and think. My thoughts flit around alighting on various topics…the birds singing in the garden, the curtain rails, my mother in London, the dim sum that my brother eats, peas I am growing, my dream that I vaguely recall. Slowly, the thoughts kaleidoscope into a pattern that usually revolves around where I am that morning, why and what I’m going to do that day. It is generally laced with good intentions and usually influenced by the books I have recently read.

Earlier this year I read Camus’ The Outsider. I had in fact intended to download essays by Jean Paul Sartre but made a mistake (that in itself is surely reflective of something pre-determined).In The Outsider,  I was struck by Camus’ central character, Meursault; his relationship to the world, his mother and the  impact of the Sun on the action of the novel. Meursault seemed indifferent to his life yet this was juxtaposed with his honesty and integrity. He took responsibility for his actions but the heat and whiteness of the days took their toll on the characters in the book.

 This morning I was thinking again about the meaning of existentialism after finishing ‘Kindness of Solitude’ by Yiyun Li  (A Chinese woman now living in America). I had downloaded it after listening to a review on Today FM. The reviewer recommended it as a thriller with a philosophical bent.

 For me, it is not a thriller (interesting juxtaposition there) but there is a philosophical bent that picks up the theme of the French existentialists. The story is weaved around the lives of three Chinese children, one of whom poisons an older girl excluded by the Communist State for activities in Tiananmen Square.

 The book examines the consequent lives of the three children, (two of whom go to live in the US). It looks at each of characters and how their adult selves respond to events that took place in their lives as children and explores how each one intentionally shapes their circumstances as a result and accepts the outcomes with equanimity. This is the existentialist theme: that each of us is responsible for our own actions. But there is also  a nihilistic feel to it because there is an inexorable destiny to which our actions will lead. There is an underlying, passive inevitability about each individual. In Kindness of Solitude I found the inevitability of characters’ destiny tedious. Each of the central characters is unfulfilled. It undermines active responsibility and denies the possibility of change. Nearly every sentence from Ruyu, one of the three central characters, ends in a question mark which oddly left her over bearing and unengaged. The other two seemed like creatures caught in a hamster wheel. Do hamsters take responsibility? I half enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the thinking behind it.

Yes, it was nice to be thinking. Last night, surrounded by fragments of chocolate eggs, I caught up with the first episode in the last series of Mad Men. Existentialism doesn’t feature much here. Don Draper’s past story may pay homage to it, but the glamour, glitz, commercialism…the rampant march of modernity lays waste to any individuality in current day society and even the ability of the individual to take responsibility for their own actions… let alone act.

 So, now this morning, having ploughed this particular  thought furrow for long enough, I will leap out of bed, embrace the sun, and glory in the day. I am off for a swim and to play with Poppins, our puppy, named after my heroine, Mary. I wonder what her view of the existentialists was…maybe something to do with supercalerfragilisticexpealidocious… I am in control!

Hope you all enjoyed the rejuvenation of Easter!

 I was really excited to watch the Westport Drama Group, Fabulous Brown Feathers (love the name) perform ‘My Rings for a Cushion’, my 15 minute play, in the Claremorris Fringe Festival last night. The play has a cast of two and David Foley (“Robbie”) and Margaret Joyce (Maura) portrayed the characters superbly. The play is about an old lady who has a hip problem, falls and can’t move. “Robbie”, a young burglar enters the house, and the play reflects how the two deal with the situation. Both actors captured perfectly the difficult but charming relationship that develops. It was directed by Liz Browne who did a fabulous job. I often think my wacky sense of humour is lost on people so I was delighted with the laughs that the performance received.

 I would also like to thank in particular, John Corless, who organises the Claremorris Fringe Festival. The Fringe festival provides new writers with the opportunity to submit short plays. He also organised tea and sandwiches afterwards so we could all meet. Without John’s advice and enthusiasm, my play would never have been performed. So thank you to all in Claremorris and Mayo!

 We also went to see The Weir by Conor McPherson performed by the Kilmuckridge Drama Group. That too was a really great performance.

 So, now I’m back in Cavan baking for my poetry workshop tonight (banana and prune loaf ). Tonight we workshop our music poems and next week the assignment is In Praise. Maybe I will do a poem in praise of the wonderful amateur dramatists across the country who create such excellent entertainment with such commitment and energy.

 And, of course, I must mention my new pet project, At the Edge, Cavan. We start the new Cavan Literary Evening on Tuesday 6 May in the Johnston Library in Cavan Town at 6.30pm. We have a great line up for the first event. Cavan man, Shane Connaughton (play/film writer) launches the project, followed by June Caldwell, a fab story teller from Dublin and then Michael Farry, from Meath, who writes lovely poems. I am really looking forward to the Open Mic afterwards. We have such writing talent in Cavan. I hope everyone has the courage to register to read.

 Well, the loaf is out of the oven and Poppins, my new puppy, is looking at me with doleful eyes. I think it might be time for a walk.

       Despite my years of experience, I still have tremors of uncertainty when it comes to art appreciation. If I feel unsure about an aspect of a play or a painting, I usually think it is surely because I have failed to comprehend its depths, and it would be best if I kept quiet and didn’t show my ignorance. That’s why I really enjoyed Tommy McArdle’s adjudication of the Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry performed at the Cavan Drama Festival – he put into words everything I thought. It is such a pleasure having your thoughts vindicated by a professional!

      I really enjoyed the play, though I felt some of the soliloquies were over long and lapsed into ‘story telling’, as Tommy McArdle described it, as opposed to dialogue. Sebastian Barry wrote it as a novel. It is beautifully written. The language is very lyrical and expressive. It is a challenge to convert into a play. I thought the Moate Club of Naas, Kildare were extremely courageous to do it, particularly Padraig Broe who played the leading character, Thomas Dunne.

      The play is about an old Superintendent of the Dublin Metropolitan Police who has been put in to the county home in Baltinglass by his daughter due to his anguished ravings stemming from his job as a Catholic superintendent during the Lock Out in 1913, the grief imposed by the loss of his wife in childbirth and the death of his young son in the First World War. The play explores that off side place between lucidity and madness that history, memory and emotion can take us to. The other characters in the play, the Home Supervisor who was the jaunty torturer of the old man (Eugene Delaney),  and the seamstress, Mrs O’Dea (Ann Hurley) as well as the three daughters all kept the  revolving nature of the play between past and present, lucidity and madness, focused and sharp. It was excellent. I am so glad there was a good a turn out. It is amazing how much work and commitment goes into these productions and the Cavan Drama Festival has to be praised and thanked for the excellent entertainment. I am only sorry I got all my dates wrong. I thought the Festival only started last night!!

      This confusion is partly due to overloading of a poor writer’s brain this week. I am sure that this ‘overloading’ didn’t used to happen when I was an overworked community development practitioner. Maybe this is because it was all shaped into one pattern of ‘work’, where as now my activities are more random. This week I have been moving my daughter in Dublin, facilitating my poetry workshop in Cavan, tendering and interviewing for a contract in Bailieborough, settling in a new young (mad) puppy at home, reading in Trim at the launch of Boyne Berries, trying to maintain my writing, and keep in touch with International Women’s Breakfasts being organised across the county by Breffini Belles of which I am a member.

     AT The Edge Cavan

But, the reason I am saying all this is to get to the most exciting part: I have been funded a wee sum of money by Cavan Arts Office to try to establish a bi-monthly literary event in the Johnston Library, Cavan between now and Christmas 2014 where local people and aspiring local writers can have the opportunity to hear published authors and/or poets.

     In Cavan, we have numerous writers and poets, writers groups, and local workshops, but there is no outlet for aspiring writers to read their material so following each of the readings will be an open mic session for local writers to perform their own work. The aim is to create a regular, popular, literary space in Cavan which is accessible and entertaining. I am calling it ‘At The Edge, Cavan’ and I am working closely with ‘Over The Edge’ in Galway from whom I stole the idea (with their permission). The first ‘reading and open mic’  will take place on Tuesday 6 May between 6.30pm and 8pm and thereafter the first Tuesday in July, September, November and December. So keep those dates free. I am organising the readers at the moment. If you are interested or want more information contact me. I will blog further when I have more details.

           Oh, I was delighted to be shortlisted in the Doolin Short Story competition last week too. Congratulations to the winners and to the festival organisers. The weekend sounded brilliant.

So I am just over a week back from my writing travels in England. I have the beginnings of a short story to show for it, some wonderful recipes and new FB friends (also some delicious amaretto drinking chocolate). It doesn’t seem too much took place while I was away. The politicians are still arguing over the police commissioner and who should say or do what when.

However, in my absence I received good news from the Cavan Arts Office. We have been given some funding towards a new venture: At The Edge in Cavan…a bi-monthly reading evening in the Johnston library followed by an Open Mic session (it starts on Tuesday 6 May). I am currently sending off requests to all sorts of authors and poets to take the opportunity to come read to us. And I hope the Open Mic session will encourage our many local aspiring writers and poets to read their own material. We are working in association with the Galway Over The Edge team, Kevin Higgins and Susan Millar du Mars, so we can network and share ideas! So watch this space!

Also, while away, I discovered that my 15 minute play, My Rings for a Cushion, which was shortlisted in the Claremorris Theatre Fringe Festival is being performed on Wednesday 9 April, in case anyone wants to hike to Mayo for the production. I am of course, thanks to my lovely workshop of poets who once again have agreed to move the workshop to accommodate me. I can’t wait.

I am really enjoying the Cana Poetry workshops that I am facilitating. People write such amazing material: the ideas, the themes, the concoction of words is always so thrilling. I really hope my workshop participants, past and present, avail of the At The Edge, Cavan Open Mic evening to come and read their poems and prose. Reading the work in public is half the battle for many.

You may be wondering about the photo.  My other welcome back event of the week was a colonoscopy. I leave you with poem detailing the experience…for your delectation!

Distorted Gut

 I am in the end bed, by the window,

next to the nurses’ station.

Bright sun light pours in

I sit on the  iron cot, waiting.

The nurses wear green scrubs, black trousers

What happened to white striped dresses with black stockings?

I wonder.

Nurse comes and pulls the curtain

sizzling and crackling along its rail

hooks missing, like gaps in teeth.

She grips a clamp on my little finger,

wraps a strap around my arm,

pumps it up. I think I might explode.

On the contrary, my blood pressure is low.

97 over 26

I am sick. Deliberately so. In preparation.

Nurse tells me to strip from the waist down,

hands me a pair of green paper shorts,

‘Put these on. Hole goes at the back’

I imagine my white arse exposed.

I blink slowly to change my train of thought.

Nurse returns to tap my vein

insert a line, wire me up

‘to keep a check on your heart’

I lay back, like a film star and smile.

Bed knobs and broom sticks come to mind

as they wheel me off, flying

through medical wards, long corridors

to surgical One, dark, filled with lit machines.

They park me in the middle bay,

which whirrs and burrs.

He stands waiting. A tubby Asian man,

thick black specs. He looks like a stock broker

from London suburbia.

‘Turn on your side, raise your knees high’

I close my eyes.

Nurse plugs me in to the monitor

so he can see.

Picadilly Circus on a crowded Saturday night

is how it feels:

knocking and banging

pushing and shoving

beeping and bleeping

That last is me.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked.

‘Go on,’ I bravely whisper.

Once again, I feel pressure

Banging, clanging,

up, down, pushed around,

skirting, hurting

That last is me

STOP

He pulled it out, disappointed.

Later, I look at my notes

to see what he wrote

‘incomplete …a distorted gut.’