Centenary in Reflection

By SiarScéal

Centenary in Reflection 2016 Anthology is a momentous snapshot of global and local history and culture; a space created to review times past, voiced by writers and students locally and internationally.

Provocative words on two world wars, emigration, and reminiscences about ‘how we once lived’ are contained within these pages. The story of how, as a nation re-birthed through the 1916 rebellion, it is that event and the fundamental truths proclaimed in the Proclamation of the Republic that haunts the psyche of our imagination, informing our views about the needs of the present as we rise to the challenges that lie ahead.

"The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens."

Let the story begin.

SiarScéal is an annual festival that celebrates the history and culture of the Roscommon environs, through all art forms and media and with the participation of communities and schools. The Festival also hosts the international Hanna Greally Literary Awards.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Manuscript Publisher
• Release date: Sep 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370182770

SiarScéal

SiarScéal is a historical, literary and bilingual festival inspired by the culture and heritage of County Roscommon, its rivers and lakes. SiarScéal celebrates the lives and history of the people of Roscommon, both nationally and globally, through the medium of poetry, prose, short stories, music and dance. The Hanna Greally Literary Award takes place in conjunction with the Festival and prizes are given out in a range of categories.

Book preview

Preface

SiarScéal Festival annually plays host to the Hanna Greally international literary awards, along with other publications and productions that it showcases. SiarScéal celebrates Roscommon’s environs with communities and schools.

Centenary in Reflection 2016 Anthology is a momentous snapshot of global and local history and culture, a space created to review times past, voiced by writers and students locally and internationally; provocative words on two world wars, emigration, and reminiscences about ‘how we once lived’. How as a nation, re-birthed through the 1916 rebellion, that still haunts the psyche of our imagination and holds vision, a hundred years on, the fundamental truths proclaimed in wording of The Proclamation.

‘The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens.’

Let the story begin.

SiarScéal Festival

Founder: Gwen McNamara Bond

Foreword

As Acting County Librarian for Roscommon County Council Library Services, it gives me great pleasure to write the foreword to this latest publication from the SiarScéal Festival. The Library has been inextricably intertwined with SiarScéal since its inception, with my predecessor Richie Farrell’s ongoing commitment to the Festival over the years. It would be my hope that this publication, Centenary in Reflection, would stand as a testimony to the past and continuing commitment of the Library service to SiarScéal.

I was a late arrival at the SiarScéal table, but found myself fascinated by the concept of a ‘rambling’ festival. As a proud Roscommon woman, I have first-hand experience of the concept of rambling, and the value we place on conversation, music and literature. The very inclusive nature of the Festival, with all varying groups coming together to celebrate the culture of ‘rambling’ is a joy to me.

The Festival would not take place without the passion and commitment of Gwen McNamara Bond, and I want to acknowledge that here. I wish also to acknowledge all of the authors and poets who have contributed to this unique publication; their work expands our concept of centenary in ways we could not have foreseen. And a very special mention to Oscar Duggan of The Manuscript Publisher, for his contribution towards the production of this anthology.

Mary Butler

Acting County Librarian, Roscommon County Council Library Services

June 2016

Ann Joyce

A Parson’s Daughter

In memory of Dr Kathleen Lynn

Shadows gallop across your prison walls,

The cell raw with the scent of tragedy;

Time, set down on the table, unfurls slowly.

Two months since you carried the Starry Plough,

Since the guns were laid down,

Since the Volunteers were arrested.

Again and again, you find yourself at the cell window,

Your thoughts a mish-mash of death and dying,

Summers in Mayo and a memory of light;

Rifles gleam in soldiers’ hands, days resound

With the sounds of gunshot; you hold the child

Caught in cross-fire, the wounds burn into your soul.

A parson’s daughter, you know the value of comfort-words

And for a moment, you are a faraway shore,

Aware of a dirge cresting a breaker.

You are one throw of the dice in these uncertain days;

Your belief in nationhood strong as a river current

That would wash away the dust of war.

Skeletons of tunes gather around you;

That ocean rhythm quickening in the marching boots

Drumming the city streets.

How long can your night endure without the flag

Or the guns, without the slogans, without the words

That will make history that will cost dearly?

And say that out of this night, a thought blossomed –

A hospital for children growing before your eyes,

As though this prison cell allowed such imagining.

Dr Kathleen Lynn

(1874-1955)

Dr Kathleen Lynn was born in Co. Mayo, daughter of a Church of Ireland rector. She was the first ever female surgeon in Ireland. She became active with Irish feminists and suffragette movement and set up a soup kitchen during the 1913 Lock Out. She joined the Irish Citizen Army and became Captain of the Citizen Army Medical Corps.

During the Easter Rising, she carried The Starry Plough from Liberty Hall to the GPO. She was chosen because she was a woman, a doctor, a protestant and a suffragette, reflecting certain key, inclusive principles of the Irish Republic as articulated by James Connolly.

Mary Melvin Geoghegan

The Pigeon’s Helicopter

Over Sackville Street, mindful

Of a retrieved Easter Monday

Straight from 1915 –

The year before all changed.

My grandfather up from Roscommon,

Parents still waiting to be born.

The carousel spins.

The ‘Road to the Rising’

Swollen with a crowd

Borrowed from another century

And the whole day long,

The sun shines down on children

High on their fathers’ shoulders,

Peering into the distance,

Remembering where they were

When Ireland celebrates again,

Fifty years on.

Take a look next time, when in St Stephen’s Green,

At the duck-keeper’s house

Standing right beside one of the lakes,

Just, as it did in 1916.

When Jack Kearney, the duck-keeper,

Fed the ducks twice a day,

As both sides agreed

To stop firing.

Mary Turley McGrath

Moving History

I had nothing when I left,

only the love of good women stretching

back behind me: my mother, my aunts

and the spirit of my grandmother,

the first woman of the house.

She kept the home fires burning

when news from the Great War arrived

by word of mouth, occasional papers

or the rare letter from England. For her,

the land was all that mattered –

their farm in a congested village

at the togher’s end.

Under the Land Acts,

a new farm was purchased; the cost,

three hundred and ninety-three pounds.

On Good Friday 1916, she left Cloonakilleg

for a new home with husband and eight sons –

a three-mile journey in the